Lenin's Giant Head Is Missing

Where's the 3.86-ton head of former Russian leader Vladimir Lenin? Um, lost in a forest, apparently. The giant head, made of Ukrainian red granite, was part of a statue that stood some 62 feet tall in East Berlin's Lenin Square before it was broken into 129 pieces and buried in a forest after the fall of the Soviet Union, Quartz reports. Organizers had hoped the head would headline a cultural exhibition on monuments in Berlin next year, covering everything from the Kaiser's Empire to the former East Germany, but when they went to retrieve it, it was nowhere to be found.

While Quartz notes the place has been hit by thieves in the past, organizers want city officials to go digging. There's just one problem: The city government isn't willing to undergo the "extensive probing and exploratory excavations" necessary to find the head, The Local reports. Plus, no one knows exactly where it was buried. Even if Berlin had the time, money, and technical ability, the head would be too difficult to restore, an official for the protection of monuments said. "I am bitterly disappointed that we are only now hearing about this decision and that this central object cannot be displayed in the exhibition," which will cost some $18 million, the head of a Berlin art office told the Berliner Zeitung, per The Local. (Click to read about a far more famous statue's bum ankles.)