A tragic accident happened in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Question: Where?
Answer: Uvarovichi, Gomel region, south-eastern Belarus.
In what local police described as ‘in a state of alcoholic intoxication’ a 21 year old chap climbed up a 5m (some sources claim 7m, but that’s some sources for you) high statue of Vladimir Lenin and tried to hang from the red tyrant’s communist revolutionary’s outstretched arm. Unfortunately, far from being of sturdy metal construction the monument is, or rather was, actually cast from nothing more than plaster – built in 1939 so think Soviet quality, oxymoron, etc. Thus the arm broke off followed by other parts, including the head, which apparently tumbled on top of the young man, who later died as a result of it.
Now, before you assume that this is about some pissed up Brit showing off to the Belarusian ladies with his Tarzan impression, he who sadly lost his life was actually a local. Of course the whole business is ghastly, and we mustn’t inject any black humour or shadenfreude into it. I’m sure that most decent folk would never dream of doing so, but, well, some people, eh?
Anyway, with the country’s president, the moustachioed dictator Alexander Lukashenko, being such a fan of the Soviet era the news that after only 24 hours plans are already in motion to repair and rebuild the giant effigy’s arm and head is hardly surprising. The town’s officials rushing to Lenin’s aid reminded me of something he himself once said:
‘Only an armed people can be the real bulwark of popular liberty.’
You know, there’s a kind of very peculiar irony in that . . . .
