Leering over a street corner in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle, the 16-foot tall statue of Communist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin can certainly catch you by surprise if you're not expecting his looming, statuesque presence to pop up around the bend. While the statue was originally crafted by the Bulgarian artist Emil Venkov in Czechoslovakia in the late 1980s, it was discovered in a scrap yard by an American and eventually, mysteriously, it found the way to Washington state, where it's become a landmark of the Fremont neighborhood of Sea-town. Certainly not devoid of controversy, the statue remains in its stalwart vigil, staring out at pedestrians, cyclists and drivers alike with the same stoic sneer. He's frequently vandalized, and there was a protest as recently as fall of 2017! Love him, hate him, he's become a prominent figurehead for the peculiar and hippie-heavy neighborhood of Fremont. During my very first visit to the city, it was in Fremont where my friend's band practiced in a local recording studio, after getting their fill of steaming hot pho at a nearby restaurant. This artsy-fartsy pro-boho attitude generally lingers, much like the funky odor of a particular smokeable herb, though new money brings in new businesses, and the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes lends towards the existence of several dispensaries nearby. On this particular visit, we were encumbered with bicycles we'd rented through the LimeBike App, and were greatly enjoying the freedom of having two-wheels powering our exploration, though keeping an eye on our vehicles meant we kept our photo-session relatively short. While these photos come from the fall of 2018, traffic was still not an exceptionally endearing aspect to the city of Seattle (though now, with the closure of the Viaduct, it's presumably worse) and riding a bicycle allows you to pretty much side-step the majority of the nastiness. It was fantastic, and I highly recommend trying out the LimeBike app if you find the bikes available!
There's more to the neighborhood than statues of communists and hippies, though! Lots of beautiful street art provides splashes of color, as did the fall foliage booming at the time. We reveled in the sunshine and thoroughly enjoyed our outing! Hopefully you can ride the vibe through our photos~ cheers!
(Happy Groundhog's day!!!)
