Want some borscht with that burger?
An 8-foot-tall statue of Vladimir Lenin will soon be standing guard in front of Goff's Charcoal Ham-burgers."We're going to put him on a street where capitalism works pretty well," said restaurant owner Harvey Gough.
Gough (pronounced goff) bought the 700-pound statue while on a recent visit to Russia, where Lenin's likeness stood in the center of nearly every town and in front of many public buildings.
Gough isn't the only American restaurateur to seek them out.
Businessman Lewis Evan Carpenter bought a 17-foot bronze statue of Lenin pulled down in a Slovak village after the fall of Communist rule there in 1989. He wants to display it at his restaurant in Seattle.
Most of the statues are posed the same way: one hand gripping a rolled-up manifesto, the other held out expressively.
Gough's statue is in storage in several pieces. All it needs is some cleaning and final assembly.
Lest anyone mistake Gough for a communist sympathizer, he prepared a written explanation: "This is a constant and concrete reminder of the absolute requirement that the United States maintain a strong defense posture and defend the ramparts of Freedom."
All the details are worked out for the statue's new home bar one.
"We're still working on the Leninburger," Gough said.