Beautiful Budapest, part 2 - Statue Park

During the years 1989 and 1990, the people of Central and Eastern Europe liberated themselves (to one degree or another) from Communism. During this process, while most countries gladly destroyed and disposed of their socialist-realist public art and their over-sized dear leaders, the Hungarians decided to do something quite novel with these symbols of oppression. They built a (sort of) theme park for them. Statue Park, located a few kilometers outside of the city, is quite a trip. Lenin, Marx, Engels, Bela Kun, and even Stalin's boots have found a home in suburban Budapest.

My favorite part of the park has to be the gift shop. Some highlights: Trabant t-shirts, CDs of "Communism's Greatest Hits (vols. 1&2)", candles of Stalin in bust form, Lenin socks, and many other souvenirs from a (thank god) bygone era. For me, the biggest irony was that, considering the merchandise, there were signs on the window of the kiosk displaying the fact that they accept all major credit cards! Ah, Communism reduced to a kitchy capitalist venture. You gotta love it. However, all is not schmaltz over there. The exhibition is a learning tool, a way to remember the past so as not to be doomed to repeat it. Better that they were removed from the city proper though. Let's take a walk through the park, shall we?

The front gate. That's Lenin on the left and Marx and Engles on the right.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. One of history's biggest criminals.

Karl Marx and Freidrich Engles. Two Germans who should have been Russians.

Stalin's boots. In 1956, the people of Budapest revolted against the Russians, sawed Papa Iosif off at the legs, and subsequently used him as a "W.C.".

The entrance gate, view from the inside. On the left is a Soviet soldier that once stood on Gellert Hill, overlooking Budapest.

Here he is, our glorious comrade.

The Hungarian worker makes friends with the Soviet soldier. "Thank you for coming to my country and liberating me from the capitalist pigs and imperialist bourgeoisie criminals. No, please, steal all of my belongings and have your way with my wife. No problem. After all, we're comrades, right?"

R.I.P. Vlady.

Bela Kun, first leader of the Hungarian communists, showing his proletariat army the way to...?

An army of blank faces.

Communism was once close to having the world in its grip.

A monument dedicated to leftists who fought in the Spanish Civil War. Again, the faceless soldier, typical socialist symbology.

It's hard to give scale here, but this guy is HUGE!

Socialist-Realism at its finest. The chiseled faces of the workers.

I wonder why the communists chose the star to go along with the hammer and sickle?

Here you get a better idea of the size of the big guy on the left.

I could have dropped a lot of cash here. I settled for a few postcards and a Stalin bust candle, which I will ceremoniously burn down upon my return to the land of the free and home of the brave.

The sun sets on Statue Park. Goodbye Lenin.