This statue of Josef Stalin was the largest in the world in 1955, overlooking the Prague’s Old Town just over the Vltava River.
Now it’s a 75-foot functioning metronome.
Walking from the hip coffee shop with English menus to the metronome, you cross through a park where everyone under 35 is on a picnic date and everyone over 35 is walking their dogs. (Actually walking with their dogs. All the dogs here are off-leash.) Before you even enter the plaza, you can hear the scraping of skateboarders on stone. The grounds immediately surrounding the pedestal seem to have turned into a makeshift skatepark, but the kind where they’re all beginners. Once on the grounds you can smell the weed and see empty bottles and pizza boxes overflowing tiny trashcans. The whole place is covered in graffiti.
On a lower level of the park, there are metal patio tables and dingy kiosks selling mojitos and jerk chicken. On a Saturday evening, the plaza is packed, except for the few benches near a dozen orange porta-potties, also graffitied. A shirtless tattooed DJ has made a little stage for himself in the crowd playing those European house beats that all sound the same. He’s rigged up a smoke machine for the beat drops, and it mingles with the rest of the smoke. More people are smoking than not. One fella uses his skateboard as a tray to carry half a dozen beers up to his friends. Someone is playing Bon Jovi on a handheld speaker.
But most people are looking at the view. From our spot we can see the Charles Bridge and St. Nicholas Church’s dome as the Vltava curves around the city. There is something insider-y about seeing the city from this height, the sounds from party boats and riverside cafes crowded with tourists drifting up to us. The dingy metronome park is for locals.
You wonder what Stalin would have thought of the commotion. There’s no sign of the old statue, and there is barely any attention paid to the giant red metronome that took its place in 1991. It is fully operational (beating at 4 beats per minute), but it’s not moving tonight. An engraving at the base of the metronome says “In time, all things pass…”
You get the sense that Prague is past its revolutionary days, but that might be the point.
Fun Fact Section
For a few weeks in 1996, this statue of Michael Jackson stood where Stalin once did, advertising his Dangerous World Tour. Workers of the world unite.
The original opening line of the Communist Manifesto, pre-edit, is reported to have been: “A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Michael Jackson’s Dangerous World Tour.” (Moon)Workers of the world unite. ✊🏾
Ah, meth-mickey and czech jerk chicken. I love your travel blog already.