Berlin

Lenin's last stand

Lenin puts in an improbable appearance in the forecourt of this Kreuzberg removals firm.

Yes, a removals company. Which definitely makes for one of Berlin's oddest hidden highlights, but it's not just the setting that's unusual.

Whereas once, of course, the Soviet leader's iconic effigy was a common enough sight in East Berlin, almost all the city's socialist monuments were dismantled following the fall of the Wall.

Such systematic erasure of the past was exactly what prompted the transport company's boss to acquire and safeguard the figure, which formerly stood in a far more prominent location on Karl-Liebknecht-Straße near Alexanderplatz.

Now preserved for posterity in one of the last places you'd expect to find such a significant relic of the ex-GDR, the figure watches as trucks trundle endlessly in and out of the busy depot. Everyone, it seems, needs something moved in Berlin, but Lenin, at least, is hopefully here to stay.

See also:
A spectacular remnant of the GDR
GDR shopping
An extraordinary GDR mosaic

Tweet