In April, Ukraine passed a law requiring the removal of all Communist symbols, including the Vladimir Lenin statues that hadn't already fallen in protests. USSR-born sculptor Alexander Milov took it upon himself to help. Thanks to him, what was once an ode to the late communist leader in Odessa now pays homage to a political figure of the fictional sort: Darth Vader.
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The statue serves in part as a nod to Ukrainian politics. In 2014, a group of 16 men registered to run for parliament under Star Wars aliases.
Milov told BBC News he hopes the statue, which he outfitted with a cape and helmet made of titanium alloy, will be the first part of a project designed to get Ukrainians thinking critically about what the monuments mean to them.
"I want to take the statues out of the central squares of cities and put them in a different place like Disneyland, where they can be visited," he said. "It seems to me that if these statues are destroyed, people coming after us will have no possibility to make conclusions for themselves as to whether people needed them or not."
In a thoughtful touch Instagrammers will surely appreciate, Milov turned the Dark Lord's head into a Wi-Fi hotspot.
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