Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Freedom Square

I walked through Námestie Slobody (Freedom Square) today. Located just north of the Old Town area, it was previously named after the first Communist president of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, and was one of the first parks renamed after the fall of Communism in 1989. He reportedly died of heart failure after returning home from Stalin's funeral -- poetic justice?

This garish silver fountain, built in the 1980s by the Communists, is reportedly the largest fountain in Bratislava.








The strangest thing in this square is what appears to be an old statue's head draped with barbed wire. "Obetiam," the first word visible in the wire on the white section, translates to "victim." The square is well-kept, other than this graffiti, which makes me think it has been left intentionally.



I have been unable to find out anything about this mystery artifact nor these peculiar white columns, which look like they were used as the bases for statues. UPDATE: I learned from my department head that these were installed by the post-Communist government as a location where people could post campaign posters or other public announcements. It is surprising that they are completely free of anything at the moment.

NOTE: Click on any image in this blog to see it full-size.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

The official version about Klement Gottwald's death is heart failiure brought on by a bad cold caught at Stalin's funeral. In reality, he was a syphilitic (whose wife Marta used to be an occasional prostitute before he married her) and an alcoholic, who drunk himself to death, maybe out of sadness for Stalin, more probably because he could feel that times were changing.

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