r/AskEurope • u/EvilPyro01 United States of America • 3d ago
Culture What are some odd but real statues in your country?
What weird statues does your country have?
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u/Cixila Denmark 3d ago edited 3d ago
Not a statue as such, but there's a sculpture of what is basically a penis and a vulva next to each other in Odense. There's nothing wrong about it, I just find it rather odd and I wonder who in the city administration decided "ah yes, let's liven up the city by commissioning this massive granite phallus and vulva to grace the main street."
Officially the sculptures are meant to represent one of H C Andersen's tales and form part of other statues and sculptures based on his works, but even the city tourist board mentions the resemblance to something else
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u/GeronimoDK Denmark 3d ago
I came here to post the penis statue.
But we also have the man-boobs statue, but he's not as controversial as the penis one I guess.
There is, or was, also a statue of H.C. Andersen in the harbor, the artist who was contracted to make it, decided to throw it in the harbor after officials could not decide on a place for it in the city center. The artist organized a procession kind of thing and called the event the "funeral of H.C. Andersen".
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u/Cixila Denmark 3d ago
I wouldn't say the genitalia sculpture is controversial. I doubt many, if any, are offended by it or find it particularly distasteful. I think it's just a bit of a headscratcher as to how it was greenlit
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u/Sagaincolours Denmark 2d ago
It is supposed to be the fairytale "The needle and the match." I guess the artist played them.
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u/BitterestLily 3d ago
I'm wondering why the "man-boobs statue" has its face obscured, like we need to protect his identity or something...
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u/swabianne Germany 3d ago
We have a giant vulva in Germany as well, a guy tried to crawl through it ten years ago and got stuck https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi-Chac%C3%A1n
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u/Unhappy_Performer538 3d ago
I knew Denmark was very sex positive and accepting but this is another level lol
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u/hfsh Netherlands 3d ago
I mean, they also had this.
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u/Unhappy_Performer538 2d ago
I am stunned LOL. Idk how to feel about that. How do you feel about it, being from the Netherlands?
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u/hfsh Netherlands 2d ago
Well, we had this surrealistic monstrosity as children's tv starting in the late 80s, so yeah...
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u/Sagaincolours Denmark 2d ago
It is a needle and a match. It is one of H.C.Andersens's fairytales. No one could ever mistake the statue for anything else. You have a dirty mind if you interpret it that way.
/jk. The two first sentences are true, but yeah, it is totally a vulva and a penis too.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland 3d ago
In the past we had Jesus that bestowed us with wi-fi, but people got mad for no reason thus now it is just Jesus
There is also a pope John Paul II that looks like heavy lifter that wants to kill someone with a giant stone, that was a counter statue to past controversy of a statue of John Paul II being crushed under meteorite
Statues of famous past people sitting at benches are very common encouraging to take a photo while sitting next to them
City of Wrocław is a capital of gnomes with a tourist challenge of trying to find them all
From typical funny ones - a statue of potato, a statue of kettle, a statue of a shitting worker, a statue of a heater
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u/Nano_needle 3d ago
Don't forget the
statue of cottage cheeseall kind of stuff that is in Radom https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbole_Radomia_(rze%C5%BAby))1
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u/DiggimonUKR Ukraine 3d ago edited 3d ago
We have a statue of Darth Vader, at least we had it. It was Lenin, but then our government implemented a decommunization law, and Lenin became like Darth Vader.
Edit: I find it on Wikipedia
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u/hanzerik Netherlands 3d ago
I lobbied to have it go with the flag for the avatar of Original trilogy memes sub Reddit, I think it's still up.
Edit: it is r/OTMemes
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u/EvilPyro01 United States of America 3d ago
They do realize what Vader symbolizes isn’t much better, in fact it’s worse, than what Lenin symbolizes right?
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u/Milosz0pl Poland 3d ago
Do you really think that people put statue of Darh Vader as a sign of support towards Imperium and Ukraine wanting to execute order 66? And not just as ,,we like star wars"?
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u/EvilPyro01 United States of America 3d ago
They could’ve at least done Luke skywalker in that case
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u/DiggimonUKR Ukraine 3d ago
We understand that Darth Vader is a monster in his world. But he is a fictional character, so our people decided it's better to have a statue of a fictional monster, than the real one, who killed thousands of our people.
But I don't know the destiny of this statue, maybe it's destroyed already.
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u/ChristyMalry 3d ago
In Manchester there's a statue of a bottle of Vimto (a popular soft drink) on the site of the place it was invented.
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u/fartingbeagle 3d ago
Brix fell in love with Mark E. Smith on an American tour. She came over to visit, Mark met her at the airport and promised to show her the sights. First, and probably last on the list was Boddington's brewery!
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u/Reasonable_Simple_32 3d ago
In Norway we have a 10 meter tall statue of a priest who died 250 years ago riding the devil in the middle of the ocean.
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u/missThora Norway 3d ago
We also have the whole of the vigeland statue park.
They are all naked and doing different things.
Including a 17m tall monolith of naked bodies, a guy fighting babies (all naked), and a rally angry baby.
There are over 200 sculptures, and almost all consist of more then one naked person.
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u/spintowinasin 3d ago
That dude with a hurricane of babies is a trip, but I would argue the angry baby is just "another day in the life of a baby" anger.
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u/Chiguito Spain 3d ago
Fallen Angel statue in Madrid, located at 666 m above sea level.
Jamón roundabout in Calamocha.
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u/kakucko101 Czechia 3d ago
we have an astronomical cock (no, not a typo - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brno_astronomical_clock)
statues of babies climbing a tower (https://cs.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miminka)
but tbf i don’t think anything is going to beat belgium’s pissing boy lol
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u/NegativeMammoth2137 🇵🇱 living in 🇳🇱 3d ago
I remember seeing a statue of two guys pissing inside the outline of the Czech Republic when I was in Prague
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u/vemundveien Norway 3d ago edited 3d ago
We have the angry naked baby https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5e/Frogner.JPG/800px-Frogner.JPG
Also we have a guy fighting a bunch of babies:
https://thirdeyetraveller.com/wp-content/uploads/vigeland-sculpture-park-oslo-frogner-8-of-19.jpg
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u/Black_flamingo 3d ago
Probably quite well known but there's a statue of Detective Columbo (and his dog) in Budapest.
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u/Business-Raise2683 3d ago
And the little mini victim behind Colombo (by Kodolko)
Also Kodolko mini statues around the city. Like the sad mini tank with limp gun targeting the parliament...
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u/Miserable_Notice_670 Finland 3d ago
We have the pissing creepy statue in Jätkäsaari, Helsinki:
https://fi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Bad_Boy
And also Posankka (mix of duck and pig) in Turku. It is now sealed but you used to be able to crawl inside it under the pig tail between the, well, cheeks 😂
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u/Wolff_Hound Czechia 3d ago
We have a statue of a sugar cube.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland 3d ago
Lol - looks like polish statue of UFO
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u/disneyvillain Finland 3d ago
Hm interesting, I didn't know there was a memorial at the site of that. Is the alleged Emilcinie abduction well-known in Poland?
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u/Milosz0pl Poland 3d ago
Nope - if it wasn't for me googling about statues I wouldn't know that it exists. Last time anybody heard about alien conspiracies was three years ago when an ufo cult leader was trying to convince that a photo of a thrown colander was 100% impossible to fake photo of UFO.
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u/greenghost22 3d ago
I never did sit on this bench, I'm to tall to sit under the boobs.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:UBahnsteig_Dahlemdorf.JPG
There are the rotten american cars in concrete:
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u/based_lad Spain 3d ago
Culis monumentalibus in Oviedo/Uviéu. Its name literally means “the monumental ass” in Latin, us locals just refer to it as “the ass”.
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u/PsychofoxDC 3d ago
Brussels has De Vaartkapoen, a statue of a boy tripping a police officer from the cover of a manhole: https://www.dzstatue.com/custom-made-famous-statues/de-vaartkapoen-tripping-policeman-sculpture.html
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u/abiggerhammer 3d ago
We also have the pissing boy, the little girl popping a squat, and the dog pissing on a bollard. A local historical society regularly dresses Manneken Pis in costumes, and although the city tries to repaint it all the time, someone always puts a splash of yellow paint on Het Zinneke's bollard.
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u/zwiingr 3d ago edited 3d ago
And you have this one in Oostende, about the gratitude of the Congolese people to King Albert, which is eh.. controversial, at least?
Edit: here's a picture Drie Gapers - Wikipedia https://share.google/AK1do07suTPNAApol
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u/abiggerhammer 3d ago
Oh dear. I haven't seen that one.
The statue of Leopold in Brussels gets vandalized regularly, at least.
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u/notnorway123 3d ago
A massive, and anatomically correct, shiny, metal statue of a moose in the middle of the woods along a highway.
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u/wojtekpolska Poland 3d ago
interesting read, it beat the Canadian "Mac the Moose" statue in size, but then the canadians decided to create a bigger set of antlers for Mac and reclaim the title of the world's largest moose statue.
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u/stefanomsala 3d ago
Well, we have this thing in Sardinia, which is apparently still looking for a name. (Madonna dei Naviganti, S. Teresa di Gallura)
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u/EvilPyro01 United States of America 3d ago
What’s with all the vaginal and phallic looking statues?
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u/Standard_Plant_8709 Estonia 3d ago
Apparently we have a glacial boulder in the middle of a regular grocery store and apparently there's some type of sculpture on top of it too.
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u/Saya-Mi Czechia 3d ago
Officially called Spravedlnost (Justice), colloquially called Exekutor odnáší pračku (distraint officer taking away your washing machine).
This should be astronomical clock, but nobody knows how to read the time there. Everybody knows, what it looks like. Also, in winter, it looks like a huge tampon.
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u/pannenkoek0923 Denmark 3d ago
The genetically modified little mermaid statue, created as a response to the frequent vandalism and theft of the head of the little mermaid statue in Copenhagen
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u/Nano_needle 3d ago
We have had the Tallest Jesus statue in the world.
https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figura_Jezusa_Chrystusa_Kr%C3%B3la_Wszech%C5%9Bwiata
HAD because it seems that Brazilians one upped us. But they won't be the ones to win this arm race, mark my words.
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u/pp86 Slovenia 3d ago
Concrete, almost brutalist looking accordion in the middle of a roundabout dedicated to Slavko Avsenik, founder of Oberkrainer genre.
https://www.momus.si/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Avsenik-skulptura.jpg
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u/spryfigure Germany 2d ago
I like the monument, but this style should be associated with something like industrial techno, not Oberkrainer.
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u/lowanddisorder 3d ago
In Belgium, we have the point zero. A secret monument, that is somewhere beneath the ground. No one except the artist knows the exact location of the said monument...
By the way, it had been paid by the municipality (24k€)
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u/schmerezad Romania 3d ago
We have a statue of a nail. It is in a town in the northernmost region of the country (Sighetul Marmației). It comes from a humorous way of explaining where that town is located, as 'the place where you hang the map from the wall'. So they erected the nail to hang your map from.
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u/SaraHHHBK Castilla 3d ago
In my city we have a statue of a woman, technically reclined with her arms crossed but the posture makes it seem super voluminous so we call it "The Fat [woman]"
Also, we have a statue of a naked man with an arm over his eyes like it's trying to block the sun looking at the horizon.
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u/Salmopacho 3d ago
Just a rock in Valverde del Camino (Spain), in homage to the workers who played an important role during the COVID pandemic. “They are the foundation of our society, just as rocks are the foundation of buildings”, the inscription reads.
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u/MCMIVC Norway 3d ago
This lovely sperm next to the E6, Norways main road in the town I grew up in. https://bucketlistnorway.com/item/seeding-along-e6/
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u/an-la Denmark 3d ago
Agnete og Havmanden (Agnete and the Merman) is a statue submerged in a canal in Copenhagen near Højbro plads in Copenhagen. The green copper statue can be difficult to spot in the dark murky water.
The ballad, of the same name, inspired H. C. Andersen's fairytale The Little Mermaid.
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u/Milosz0pl Poland 3d ago
how many 112 reports of people drowning does this city get for those statues?
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u/Brainwheeze Portugal 3d ago
The statue of King Sebastian in Lagos is somewhat controversial. It was by the sculptor João Cutileiro who had a pretty interesting style.
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u/Malthesse Sweden 3d ago
A rather cool one is the Scanisaurus statue. A sculpture group and fountain in Bromölla which somewhat fancifully depicts a pair of Scanisaurus - a species of plesiosaur found by the adjacent lake Ivösjön. The plates on the sculptures are made with kaolin and limestone from the nearby shores where the fossils were found.
Another rather fantastical sculpture is the UFO Monument in a seaside forest outside Ängelholm. It was created by a wealthy and somewhat eccentric local businessman, based on his own experiences when once encountering a UFO at this very spot in the forest.
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u/AmazingPangolin9315 Luxembourg 3d ago
Luxembourg has deer having intercourse, missionary style. https://en.paperjam.lu/article/delano_2-deer-are-too-ugly-mag-readers
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u/Grouchy_Fan_2236 Hungary 3d ago
- A statue of Columbo (Peter Falk) and his dog.
- Statue of dragonflies, but the size and placement (located on a children's playground) makes them oddly creepy.
- Bud Spencer) statue. There's also a Bud Spencer park, with a small mound named Terence Hill in it.
- Ronald Reagan statue. Western liberals always find this odd, but the Ronald Reagan fandom in Eastern Europe is real for his role in bringing down the Berlin wall. You can find Ronald Reagan squares and memorials in many ex-socialist countries.
- Statue of The lost astronaut. I mean he truly seems lost.
- Statue of the fat policeman. The fact that it's specifically formed to be fat just feels... right?
- Sculpture to the Jewish victims of Holocaust by the Catholic bishopric. This statue is supposed to be a memorial of bond and brotherhood depicting a Catholic priest praying for his Jewish friend falling out of their boat. But it oddly looks as if the Catholic priest just kicked out the Jew and is complaining to God about him? Controversial.
- Mini statues all around Budapest. There's Chuck Norris, Yoda, Garfield, etc. The sculptor got fed up for not receiving contracts for larger art projects, so he started placing small sculptures in hidden public spaces without permit. Since then more sculptors started following suit, so the situation got a bit out of control and there could be 100+ of these located around Budapest.
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u/skyduster88 & 3d ago edited 3d ago
Ronald Reagan statue. Western liberals always find this odd, but the Ronald Reagan fandom in Eastern Europe is real for his role in bringing down the Berlin wall. You can find Ronald Reagan squares and memorials in many ex-socialist countries.
In Southern Europe, putting a 60s/70s/80s American president on a pedestal, is definitely a no. (US-friendly/supported dictatorships and Operation Gladio)
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u/Looz-Ashae Russia 3d ago edited 3d ago
A massive turd on the banks of a Moskva river in Moscow. Well, it's a monument to a clay, but it looks not good at all...
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u/Sublime99 -> 3d ago
A statue of a Polish woman whacking a neo-Nazi over the head with her handbag is out in Alingsås, based on a well known photo which is kinda heartwarming but also badass. Although Idk how to feel because Danuta reportedly hated the photo and suffered from mental health issues much of her life and eventually committed suicide.
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u/TheFriendOfOP Denmark 3d ago
We have this weird little mermaid statue in the middle of Copenhagen. It's had its head cut off a few times as well, for some reason
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u/Fredericia Denmark 3d ago
Strangely, I haven't seen it in person, but I had a mini model of it while I was still in the US.
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u/Fredericia Denmark 3d ago
I haven't seen any of the statues in Denmark that are mentioned here, but the one sculpture I have seen is Man Meets the Sea in Esbjerg. It's just disturbing to look at, and it gives Esbjerg a weird vibe.
Being American, I know about the Little Mermaid. The story was translated into English, and then decades later Disney made a movie based on it, which I haven't seen.
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u/Legitimate-Cow5982 3d ago
Not Dutch but iirc there is/was a statue of someone dogging a sheep. I think it was a statement piece
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u/Aurorinha France 3d ago
This thumb in the business district in Paris.
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u/Onnimanni_Maki Finland 3d ago
Statue of Mahatma Gandhi. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fi/c/c7/Gautam_Pal_Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi_2019.jpg There is no connection between Gandhi and Finland. The Indian government just wanted to give it to us.
Whatever this is.
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u/slashcleverusername Canada 3d ago
They have one in Winnipeg, in Canada, too.
https://www.mhs.mb.ca/docs/sites/gandhi.shtml
In fairness he is in front of the national Museum for Human Rights so it’s not entirely out of place to commemorate someone known for enabling self-determination of a country, etc. But again no particular connection to Winnipeg or Canada other than he was the subject of a very popular biographical film in the 80s that many Winnipeggers would have watched.
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u/baobabtreelover 3d ago
Not exactly a statue, more of a sculpture but in Ireland we have "perpetual motion", or as it's more commonly known as, the Naas Ball. It's literally a giant orb of road. Def my favorite piece of public sculpture ever. article about it and photos
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u/BeatSubject6642 Finland 3d ago
https://fi.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Bad_Boy
To see a picture of the statue, open the link. Then change language to english. I don't know why the picture isn't included in the english version of the page.
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u/Other_Golf_4836 2d ago
This one is super eerie when you see it for the first time. https://cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/CKV3YKEXPNMZXKVMEY6CVVGKCQ.jpg
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u/oboris 2d ago
16 yrs before Amsterdam, Zagreb got a statue of a prostitue (tribute to hardships those women had).
https://evendo.com/locations/croatia/zagreb/tkalciceva-street/landmark/spomenik-prostitutki
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u/Elvenblood7E7 2d ago
Budapest, Hungary: the "guerilla sculptor" Kolodko has put up some weird bronze statues all over the inner districts. Hungarian cartoon characters, the car from a Jenő Rejtő novel, etc.
Also in Budapest: bronze statues of snails, birds, etc. in the Széll Kálmán Square.
Also in Budapest: the Raoul Wallenberg memorial in Deák Ferenc Square. A "statue" of a diplomat's suitcase.
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u/Useful_Cheesecake117 Netherlands 2d ago
Alas, I can't add a picture.
Kabouter butt plug) Butt plug gnome
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u/Useful_Cheesecake117 Netherlands 2d ago
On a medieval cathedral, we've got a statue of an angel with a smartphone
, phoning our prayers to heaven
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u/crucible Wales 2d ago
They installed a statue of a perfectly normal chicken over the border in England, for some reason :P
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u/spellbookwanda Ireland 2d ago
In Dublin we have a bronze statue of Molly Malone but the breasts are far lighter coloured from everyone groping them.
We also have a fantastic statue of Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy.
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u/quark42q 3d ago
Brussels has Godefroy of Bouillon on Place Royale. Odd to put a crusader in such a public spot, in a city where a really large muslim community lives.
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u/Draig_werdd in 3d ago edited 3d ago
Godefroy of Bouillon
The statue was put in the 19th century so I don't see how they would have known that the area would be muslim in 200 years. The guy was also from present day Belgium.
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u/ipakin94 Netherlands 3d ago
I think we've got a good shot at winning this: in Rotterdam there's Buttplug Gnome).