Picture of Lenin museum, Poronin - 1956“Not much is going on here,” lamented councillor Anna Malacin from the town in the highlands where Lenin used to stay while in exile from Tsarist security forces preceding the 1917 revolution.
“Tourists are increasingly sparse, Poronin has fallen into a winter slumber, and the diminishing numbers can also be explained by the financial crisis. Are the times coming when we will need to reconsider Lenin and bring back the statue?” she is quoted in the local Tygodnik Podhalanski weekly as saying.
Poronin, which lies close to the skiing resort of Zakopane, once drew bus-loads of visitors from across the Soviet Union.
Vladimir Lenin, the architect of Bolshevik rule, lived in Poronin prior to the First World War, when the town was a part of the Habsburg Empire. The Austrian domains were considered a relatively safe place for activists to conspire against Tsarist Russia.
A museum (closed following the collapse of communism) was opened in 1948, and visitors descended from Czechoslovakia, Romania, East Germany and Yugoslavia. Poronin was also a staple fixture of Polish school trips.
The notion of bringing back the Lenin statue drew favourable responses amongst town councillors. However, several public figures are against the concept, including MP Stefan Niesiolowski (Civic Platform) who attempted to blow up the statue in 1970, but was foiled by security services.
The statue currently resides in the Gallery of Socialist Realist Art at Kozlowka, near Lublin.
(nh/pg)