The tallest monument to Lenin is located in Volgograd, in southern Russia. The overall height of the monument is 57 meters, which is equal to a 15 story building. Lenin’s statue is 27 meters long, and the monument itself is 30 meters. It’s in the Guinness Book of Records as the tallest monument in the world dedicated to a non-fictional figure.

It seems that it was a matter of prestige and favorable reputation for Soviet sculptors to make their monuments to Lenin as gigantic as possible. It was hoped that the bigger the size, the bigger would be the attention the monument would attract.

One of the most eye-catching tributes to Lenin can be found in the capital of the Buryat Republic, in the city of Ulan-Ude. The head of the legendary leader of the Great October Revolution is as large as the size of a luxury hotel room – 18 meters.

If it looks like something is wrong with the monument in the historic central Russian city of Kostroma, there is – it was supposed to feature Russian tsars, not revolutionary leaders. But while it was being built, the regime changed, and the tsarist regime was overthrown.
Times change, as well as people’s attitudes to the man who was once the most popular Soviet leader – Vladimir Lenin.

Some “lucky” monuments to Lenin have even received a facelift. This happened to Lenin in the major southern Russian city of Saratov, where a group of creative office managers decided to change the image of the boring monument to Lenin in their courtyard, and painted it sky blue. It’s not clear whether this was a hint of Lenin’s latent homosexuality, his depression, or simply a desire to make the monument look different. One thing is certain – you can’t miss it!

But not only Russia is home to some of the world’s most weird monuments to Lenin.

There’s a statue honoring Vladimir Ilyich in Fermont, near Seattle. The seven-ton masterpiece traveled to America from Czechoslovakia when it was erected in 1988. An American entrepreneur Lewis Carpenter found it at the dump, and liked it to the point where he pawned his house to buy and transport it to his native Seattle!

People’s attitudes to Lenin monuments in Russia are as controversial as the monuments themselves. Some say, they are part of history and must stay where they are. Others insist they should go.

In a recent accident on April Fool’s day, a 10-meter high bronze statue to the communist leader near St. Petersburg's Finlyandsky railway station was badly damaged following an explosion that opened a hole in it.

The Communist Party of Russia expressed its outrage at the explosion, describing it as "a politically charged act of vandalism."

Injured but not dead, it seems that whatever happens, Lenin’s monuments are likely to stay in different parts of the world for years to come.

Lenin was a mushroom?

Back in 1991, one of Russia’s most sophisticated experimental music composers, Sergey Kuryokhin, caused a sensation when he claimed that “Lenin was a mushroom."

The avant-garde musician unveiled his theory live on the Soviet TV show “5th Wheel."

According to Kuryokhin, this was the top secret behind the 1917 Bolshevik revolution led by Lenin.

“I have indisputable evidence that the October Revolution was the brainchild of people who’d been taking hallucinating mushrooms for years, and in the long run, mushrooms replaced their personalities, and they turned into mushrooms,” Kuryokhin said.

“Lenin was a mushroom. Moreover, he was not only a mushroom, but also a radio-wave. His armored-car, the famous ‘bronevik,' served as a spawn while Lenin was a fly agaric.”

Sergey Kuryokhin’s show, co-hosted by film critic Sergey Sholokhov, received mixed reactions. A number of people believed every word of it, and spread it to others.

Within a short period of time, “Lenin is a mushroom” became the most-talked about topic of the day, and Kuryokhin was hailed as one of the first creators of “media viruses” in the Russian media.

Many agree that Kuryokhin made it up in order to prove that almost anything, no matter how absurd or surreal it looks or sounds, can be 'proved,' especially on live TV.

Paradoxically enough, shortly before his sudden death in 1996, Kuryokhin, who never tired of surprising his fans and friends, entered the National Bolshevik Party of Eduard Limonov.