Lenin Plaza

Subscribe to our YouTube channel here: Some of the most recognisable visual images of communist Russia are the monuments and statues of Vladimir Lenin. Lenin was one of the top leaders of the Russian Revolution (October 1917) and after his death, all the way up to the Soviet breakup, Lenin was idolised and memorialised all around the USSR (soviet Russia has around 15,000 Lenin statues and monuments). Pretty much every city and almost every village all around the country has a street and square named after the USSR collapsed, for most regular Russian people Lenin became a symbol of the misled past, but newborn street cultures made his monuments their home. Central locations, big pedestrian areas around the monuments, good flatground and skate-friendly architecture made of marble and granite blocks were some of the reasons why skaters gravitated towards them and they rapidly became the first go-to spots where skaters would meet and hang out. Now, 28 years later, Lenin monuments are still central day-to-day spots in many big Russian cities including Moscow and Saint Petersburg. Through the years Lenin monuments have appeared in many different local and international skateboarding videos. In 2019 Vans Russia’s Alexey Krasniy worked on a solo project that focused on Lenin monuments all around Russia, and for which he managed to skate 20 of them in 15 different cities. Read all about the project and Alexey’s impressions and thoughts on Lenin’s skateboarding heritage here: The Lenins were skated by Alexey Krasniy with guest appearances from Vans Russia’s Dima Shatalov, Alexey Meleshko, Denis Yuzefovich, Eugene Nikolaev and Roma Ivanov. The project was filmed and edited by Dmitry Kononov. Still photography by Alexey Lapin. Produced by Kirill Korobkov. Song: “И Вновь Продолжается Бой” written by Alexandra Pakhmutova and Nikolai Dobronravov performed by Grazhdanskaya oborona.