Lenin’s giant head to watch over Berlin again, 25 years after the wall came down

Buried and long forgotten, the head of a giant Lenin statue is set to make a comeback in the German capital, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Soviet leader will gaze again on the people when the 3.5 tonne piece is resurrected from its current grave – a sandpit under a pile of rocks home to a colony of lizards. The goateed head of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, alias Lenin, is to be unearthed, trucked across Berlin and displayed in a line-up of historical sculptures marking the end of an odyssey that started in the Cold War. “Lenin was always set to be part of the exhibition because it’s a special statue, given its size alone,” said Andrea Theissen, curator of the Citadel Spandau hosting the exhibition from September.

It has been 25 years since the fall of the Wall and we naturally thought: is it wise to have Lenin pass through the city and exhibit him in a museum?

Petra Rohland, Berlin city spokeswoman

The 1.7m (5ft) head was part of a Lenin statue carved from Ukrainian pink granite that towered 19m (62ft) above East Berlin, framed by Soviet pre-fab apartment tower blocks. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the statue was cut up and the head buried in a forest and, officially at least, its whereabouts long forgotten. It was unearthed by US filmmaker Rick Minnich in the early 1990s for a mockumentary. When officials were still denying they knew where it was in 2014, Minnich stirred up an outcry which led to a rethink. It was dug up, albeit after another furore over a colony of endangered sand lizards that had found a home above Lenin’s buried head. Now, it will form part of the exhibition, Unveiled. Berlin and its Monuments, featuring some 100 works dating back to the 18th century, in the Spandau Citadel in western Berlin.

It was at the heart of citizen protests and of debates in the Berlin government assembly

Andrea Theissen, curator of the Citadel Spandau