Lenin Statue Transformed Into Darth Vader WiFi Hotspot

What's a city to do with old statues of dead leaders from fallen regimes? One could topple them over and/or melt them down, as is somewhat common, or could approach the matter from a more artsy perspective, and give them a makeover instead. One Ukrainian artist did just that with an old Vladimir Lenin statue located in Odessa, where it now stands tall as a different sort of leader: Darth Vader.

The artist is Alexander Milov of Odessa, Ukraine, where he did a little work on the Lenin statue, turning him into Darth Vader. This is one part of a larger decommunization project underway in the Ukraine, and it has a side dish of functionality. The statue, particularly Vader's helmet, is a functional free Wi-Fi hotspot.

The basic structure remains, but there's no hint of the communism that Ukraine is working to erase, nor the subject of the original statue. The coat is now a cape, the legs are now clad in boots, and the head is hidden within the iconic helmet. The extra parts are a titanium alloy, which were glued onto the existing statue.

In a statement to BBC, Milov said, "I was born in the USSR, and I am a child of a country that doesn't exist any more. I wish to save the monuments of history. I'm trying to clean up the operating system and keep them on the hard drive of memory."

SOURCE: New York Times