Old photos of the Soviet barracks in Möhlau show a relief with a side portrait of Lenin. For years it was thought to have been lost when the Soviet army left, because the remaining stele was blank. But after a quarter of a century of weathering, the top layer of the stele began to peel away and surprisingly, the red colour of the former monument and the outlines of Lenin’s head appeared, although diffuse and blurred. We immediately set out in the hope of restoring the original relief.
Schlagwort: Red Army
Mural renovated and extended in graffiti style
While exploring abandoned objects one constantly comes across graffiti, tags and other works of „street art„. They have become part of the unique landscape of abandoned places. However, they rarely have a concrete connection to the historical sites in which they are located and many visitors tend to perceive them as foreign bodies or disturbing elements. An exception can be seen in Möhlau, where a graffiti artist first renovated a monumental Lenin mural of the Soviet army, only to expand it with a stylized Soviet flag. Weiterlesen
The hidden mural
On the former airfield in Sperenberg (Brandenburg) there is still a flaking Soviet mural with Lenin inside an abandoned building. It is a difficult discovery even for experienced Urbex explorers, because the corridor to the room can only be reached through a small hole in a wall. But first you have to find the right building in this vast ghost town. Weiterlesen
Kopie eines Reliefs
Die Gemeinde Dallgow-Döberitz liegt südlich von Falkensee, nur wenige Kilometer von Berlin entfernt. Im dortigen sowjetischen Kriegsfriedhof – einer von den vielen hierzulande – liegen 628 im Kampf um Berlin gefallene Soldaten und Offiziere der Roten Armee und einige Armeeangehörige, die nach 1945 auf deutschem Gebiet stationiert waren und hier verstorben sind. Weiterlesen
Pale memory
Once hundreds of neat soldiers of the Soviet Army marched here past the tribune of honour and the two freshly painted murals. Today, however, this is only a pale memory of times past. As pale as the colour of the two Soviet steles: One shows a Red Army soldier, the other Lenin. Although the Soviet revolutionary leader has been abandoned for almost 30 years, his stony gaze and charisma still remain on the former parade trail. Weiterlesen
Urbex restoration of a Lenin mural
While imperial and even colonial or Nazi monuments can easily be put under monumental protection in Germany because of their historical value, after the fall of the Berlin Wall attempts were made to demolish all representations of Lenin. Some of them survived the iconoclasm in former military complexes of the Soviet Army. Now they must resist abandonment and vandalism. Weiterlesen
Grandfather Lenin
The sitting Lenin from Bischofswerda looks grandfatherly. With a serene posture and a light smile, he looks contemplatively to the side. In his left hand he holds a book and marks the page with his index finger, as if after a short pause for thought he wanted to read on. In contrast to many of Lenin’s heroic representations, Manfred Wagner created this calm, reflexive figure in 1970. He was interested in presenting the person behind the hero. Weiterlesen
Fürstenwalder statue set up again on Leninsquare
After the military withdrawal in 1994, a statue of Lenin was left behind in the military area of the Soviet Army in Fürstenwalde. The sculpture is presumably a creation of the members of the army from the 1970s. After a long period of uncertainty, the monument was brought into the private collection of the association IFA-Freunde Trebus (Fürstenwalde) in 2015, where it is part of a large exhibition of GDR vehicles, everyday objects and monuments. Weiterlesen
X-files (1): The vanished statue
A statue, which is under monument protection, but disappears twice without a trace. An old and forgotten bust, which suddenly is standing at the entrance of the Volkspark. Lenin’s existence in Potsdam is a succession of mysterious incidents and even journalists, politicians and public authorities lose track of it. Weiterlesen
Vogelsang’s Lenin saved from demolition
After the Red Army left its base in Vogelsang, Brandenburg, the abandoned barracks turned into a popular destination for photographers and adventurous tourists. The main attraction was the large mural with a Lenin relief between the old café and the officers‘ house. However, a few years ago, following the decision to renaturalize the area, the demolition of the entire military complex began, which also endangered the Lenin Monument. But finally the monument to the Communist revolutionary was saved in spring of 2017 and taken to Wünsdorf, being placed in front of a museum. Weiterlesen
