Removed Soviet Statues — Soviet Monumental Sculpture, Tallinn

Removed Soviet StatuesSoviet Monumental Sculpture  ·  Tallinn

Key facts

Style

Soviet Monumental Sculpture

Location

Estonian History Museum, Maarjamäe

Photos

29

Photographed

Removed Soviet Statues

Behind the history museum at Maarjamäe, in the open air, lies a collection of Soviet statues taken down from squares and institutions across Estonia: Lenins, Stalins, generic workers and soldiers, several of each, standing and lying in rows on the grass.

Estonia chose neither to keep them in place nor to destroy them. Assembled like this, stripped of the plinths and the settings that gave them authority, they stop being monuments and become objects — and the repetition is the point. You can see immediately how few designs were used, and how many times each one was cast.

Photographs and text by Dicky Chan · shot on iPhone, on foot

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Removed Soviet Statues — Gallery

29 photos

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