WHY THERE IS A STATUE OF LENIN IN SEATTLE,WASHINGTON
Lewis E. Carpenter, a resident of Issaquah, Washington, who was teaching English in Poprad, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) found the Lenin statue lying in a scrapyard ready to be sold for the price of the bronze. In close collaboration with a local journalist and good friend, Tomáš Fülöpp, Carpenter approached the city officials with a claim that despite its current unpopularity, the sculpture was still a work of art worth preserving, and he offered to buy it for $13,000. After many bureaucratic hurdles, he finally signed a contract with the mayor on March 16, 1993.
With the help of the original sculptor, the statue was professionally cut into three pieces and shipped to the United States at a total cost of $41,000. Lewis Carpenter financed much of that via mortgaging his home.
On February 18, 1994 in the midst of the uproar in Seattle that was set off by his import of a statue of a communist leader, Lewis Carpenter was killed in a car accident.
--Wikipedia
Lewis E. Carpenter, a resident of Issaquah, Washington, who was teaching English in Poprad, Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia) found the Lenin statue lying in a scrapyard ready to be sold for the price of the bronze. In close collaboration with a local journalist and good friend, Tomáš Fülöpp, Carpenter approached the city officials with a claim that despite its current unpopularity, the sculpture was still a work of art worth preserving, and he offered to buy it for $13,000. After many bureaucratic hurdles, he finally signed a contract with the mayor on March 16, 1993.
With the help of the original sculptor, the statue was professionally cut into three pieces and shipped to the United States at a total cost of $41,000. Lewis Carpenter financed much of that via mortgaging his home.
On February 18, 1994 in the midst of the uproar in Seattle that was set off by his import of a statue of a communist leader, Lewis Carpenter was killed in a car accident.
--Wikipedia