
A century after the Russian Revolution, the influence of its leader Vladimir Lenin has waned but his image remains on monuments built across the former Soviet Union as part of a cult of personality.

Lenin was born in 1870 and became one of the 20th century's most important leaders as the revolution inspired by Karl Marx transformed Russia and influenced Socialists around the world for decades.

A monument to Lenin stands at a park of the Siberian town of Uzhur in Krasnoyarsk region. As the first leader of the one-party communist state, Lenin redistributed land and nationalised industry and banks in a bid to champion the working class. He also used violence on a wide scale to crush perceived opponents of his Marxist ideology. When he died in 1924, Soviet authorities displayed his body in a mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square where it lies to this day.

A damaged monument to Lenin lies at a private abandoned courtyard outside Tbilisi, Georgia. They also built monuments and statues of him around the Soviet Union, often depicting him giving a speech to supporters at a station in what is now Saint Petersburg on his arrival from exile by train in April 1917 to lead the revolution.

1 / 13 Slideshow Russian servicemen run-up a navy flag on deck of the cruiser Aurora in St. Petersburg. The cruiser, which fired the shot that announced the start of Russia’s 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, now serves as a museum. A ruined ship with Communist Party symbol hammer and sickle lies on a salinated part of the Aral Sea coast line near the village of Akespe, Kazakhstan. A ghost town of a former Soviet military radar station was the site of two Dnepr radar installations constructed in the 1960s and were strategically important to the Soviet Union as they covered Western Europe. A monument to Lenin stands in a park in Yevpatoriya, Crimea. Construction workers are seen inside Cosmos (Space) Pavilion under reconstruction at the Exhibition of Achievements of National Economy in Moscow. The coat of arms of the USSR, of the 15 former Soviet republics and the emblems of the sectors of the economy were found at the base of the dome of the pavilion behind the false panels during the restoration works. A coat of arms of the Soviet Lithuania is seen at the Grutas Soviet heritage park in Druskinikai, Lithuania. Grutas Park is a 86 sculpture garden of Soviet-era statues and an exposition of other Soviet ideological relics from the times of the Lithuania as part of the Soviet Union. A cobalt glass mosaic panel with a portrait of Lenin is seen at the Krasnoyarsk hydro electric power station, second largest in Russia, located on the Yenisei River. A panel with a portrait of Lenin and an abandoned building are seen at the 30 km (19 miles) exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor in the abandoned village of Orevichi, Belarus. A monument to Lenin stands in the settlement of Kovylnoye in the Razdolnensky district of Crimea. A detail of a monument to Lenin is seen in the settlement of Ordzhonikidze, near Feodosia, Crimea. Monuments of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin stand at museum of the social realism in Frumushika-nova, Odessa region, Ukraine. A Soviet-Era monument with a sickle and a hammer which were displayed on the coat of arms of the Soviet Union, stands in Simferopol, Crimea. A Soviet-Era wall decoration is seen on a residential building in Yevpatoriya, Crimea.

Story Many of the memorials have been toppled or removed since the Soviet Union was dissolved in 1991 but others remain, reflecting a debate in Russia about his legacy.