Stalin Monument, Soviet monument in The Hague, Netherlands
The Stalin Monument is a conceptual artwork consisting of a bust placed inside a phone booth near the Museon and The Hague Municipal Museum. The sculpture sits obscured within this ordinary structure and is easy to miss if you do not look carefully.
The work was created in 1986 by artists Vitaly Komar and Alexander Melamid during a period when Soviet history was being reassessed. Shortly after its creation, the Soviet Union itself underwent major transformations that made this artistic perspective particularly timely.
The phone booth setting raises questions about how communication shapes our view of history and political figures. Placing a Soviet leader in such an ordinary, private space changes how visitors think about power and memory.
The monument sits in an area with good public transportation links and is surrounded by several museums and parks. It is easy to reach on foot, though locating the exact phone booth requires some attention as it blends into the ordinary street landscape.
The work comes from Russian artists who created it as an ironic comment on Soviet power's presence in Europe. This unexpected pairing of a Soviet leader with Western everyday technology remains one of the most provocative artistic gestures in the city.
The community of curious travelers
AroundUs brings together thousands of curated places, local tips, and hidden gems, enriched daily by 60,000 contributors worldwide.
