Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 10

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Popular Culture Review
people living in Moscow are chowing down on wasabi-honey-glazed tuna steak
at $24.50 a la carte.”4 And caviar, of course, is a featured item.
The “cool decor” mentioned by Paskevich is dominated by weathered-
look propaganda murals and authentic Russian antique lighting fixtures. Historic
periods clash as gilt mirrors, red velvet drapes, massive chandeliers, icons, onion
domes, and even a faded mural of an Orthodox Madonna from an earlier era
converge with hammers and sickles and oversized “heroic-worker socialist” art
reproductions. Waiters in black Cossack tunics display the red embroidered
slogan “join the party” emblazoned across their backs. This double entendre also
graces matchbooks and bar napkins. Similarly, a recorded phone message greets
callers with, “The Col d War is over, but you can still join the party and unite
with your fellow workers at Red Square, where you’ll find plenty of
comradeship.”
The most dramatic feature of this new themed restaurant/bar on the
Strip, however, was a 20-foot, 4500-pound statue of Vladimir Lenin in his
classic pose with one outstretched hand and the other clasping a worker’s cap.
Placed in the walkway outside the front door of Red Square to attract patrons,
the statue followed a trend in Las Vegas toward large, garish renderings of
historical landmarks and personages; and, much like the Eiffel Tower replica at
the Paris and Michelangelo's nude David at Caesar's, Lenin figured to be a
popular photo op for passing tourists.5 But the public's response was different
from expected.
Almost immediately, the hotel began to receive letters and calls, mostly
from veterans, protesting the statue, and several letters to the editor appeared in
the local newspapers. One called Lenin “the most bloody dictator that ever
existed in the 20th century,”6 and another opined that honoring him with the
statue was an “insult to many patriotic Americans.”7 Yet another claimed that
the “horrid display goes against the moral fiber of every anti-Communist
resident of this state.’8 Nicklas Didushak, a Ukraine native living in Las Vegas,
asked, “Why the hell did they put in that statue? Why not put a Swastika
there?”9 Jack Hildebrand, a veteran from Orange County, California, agreed:
“It’s an insult to humanity. Why are they glorifying a monster? It's like putting
up a statue of Stalin or Hitler.”10 And perhaps most bothersome of all to the
owners of Mandalay Bay was a comment by Las Vegan Jane Borden: “I don’t
ever intend to wander through there. I wouldn’t go anywhere there’s a statue of
Lenin.”11
Succumbing to public pressure, hotel management decided to remove
the head from the statue and sprinkle the shoulders with artificial pigeon
droppings.12 According to Mandalay Bay spokesperson Sarah Ralston, “We
debated how to deal with the issue. We ran an extensive search of news clips on
what happened in the Eastern bloc to the real Lenin statues after the fall of
communism. In many cases, townships had neither resources nor manpower to
physically remove these statues that often weighed hundreds of tons. What they