Giant Headless Statue Of Lenin (Gone)

Las Vegas, Nevada

Nothing spits in the dead eye of a counter-capitalist political system like standing one of its heroes inside a Las Vegas casino and cutting off his head.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924), who was one of the leaders of the Soviet revolution, has stood outside "Red Square," a pricey vodka bar along Mandalay Bay Hotel-Casino's indoor restaurant row, since early 1999. An iron giant of heroic proportions, the statue initially caused controversy: was a casino celebrating a communist? So the owners of Mandalay Bay lopped off Lenin's head and spattered his decapitated shoulders and shoe tops with simulated bird poop.

Of course, Vegas is a city of heroic proportions, and Lenin is just one more minor landmark. Without his head, he's even more oblique and Sphinx-like than the Luxor Sphinx next door.

The Lenin statue's head is frozen inside a block of ice within the bar's walk-in freezer, reportedly viewable by patrons who buy the expensive stuff and ask nicely for a peek.