Resin Lenin presides over Antarctica's Pole of Inaccessibility

In December 1958, a Soviet expedition reached Antarctica's Pole of Inaccessibility, the point on the continent farthest from any coastline: 1,400 kilometers inland and 3,700 meters up in the coldest region on Earth. The year-round average temperature there is minus 58 degrees centigrade. The team, led by polar scientist Yevgeny Tolstikov, erected a small station, ran meteorological observations for twelve days, cleared an airstrip long enough to land a Li-2, then concluded the site was simply too remote for permanent operation. Before withdrawing on December 26, though, they stocked the hut with months worth of food, left a note inviting any future visitors to help themselves, and installed a large bust of Vladimir Lenin to the top, facing Moscow

Nobody came for years. An American traverse team from the Queen Maud Land Traverse took up the offer of lunch in 1965 only to find the station already half-swallowed by snow. By 2007, when a British-led team arrived on foot, they found the station gone, buried entirely, with only Lenin's head above the ice sheet.

"We all burst into uncontrollable shouts and laughter," the team told Explorers Web.

In December 2011, Sebastian Copeland and Eric McNair-Landry stopped by mid-crossing. The most recent visits were by Chinese explorer Feng Jing and British explorers Chris and Mika Brown, who hung out with the resin revolutionary in 2023. Here's the most recent photo:

Antarctica's Lenin is the most remote Lenin, but not the only remote Lenin. In Pyramiden, the Soviet coal town on Svalbard abandoned in the 1990s, the northernmost Lenin presides over empty apartment blocks and a decaying "culture palace." In warmer Istaravshan, Tajikistan, a gigantic bust sits on a rocky bluff above the Kattasoy Reservoir, 300 steps up. Many former Soviet places tore down their Lenin statues, but some have since restored them: Berlin's 62-foot granite Lenin was buried in pieces in a sand pit but ultimately exhumed and restored in 2015 for display at Spandau Citadel Museum. One also went back up in Turkey. Restoring Lenin statues has become a thing in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, where they were removed with vigor after the Soviet Union's collapse. In any case, he is thought to remain the most statued person in history other than religious figures such as the Buddha, Jesus and Mary.

The Antarctic bust need not worry, though as it's now a designated Historic Site and legally protected from human interference. Just not from the encroaching ice.