Pop culture has its crocodile hunters, house hunters, ghost hunters, and more. Matthew Moore, a photographer currently based in Maryland, has lived on and off in Czechia for the past 20 years. In that time, he has become fascinated by public relics of Soviet power. So he became a statue hunter or, more precisely, a void hunter, seeking out the places where since-relocated Soviet monuments once stood, and then the monuments themselves.

“When I first moved to the Czech Republic in 2000, I found out about the ‘pink tank’ in Prague, and became obsessed by it,” Moore says, referring to the Soviet Tank Monument—an actual military tank used by Russians during the Czech invasion, left on display in a city square for decades. Following the Velvet Revolution of 1989, it was famously painted bubble-gum pink by artist David Černý. Though the tank had been relocated to the Military Technical Museum of Lesany by the time Moore was living in Prague, he was determined to find the spot where it once stood.

This turned out to be a difficult mission for a non-native—particularly before Google Maps and smartphones. The Czech government had taken great pains to erase the remaining traces of Soviet occupation, removing once-ubiquitous statues of Lenin and Stalin, renaming streets and squares, and reclaiming public spaces. The original location of the tank wasn’t associated with any name or address, and though it may have been recorded somewhere in newspaper accounts, Moore didn’t then read or speak Czech.

<em>Stalin, Berlin, Germany</em> (2017): “The local municipality attempted to repurpose this spot by putting a fountain in place of the statue of Stalin, but the fountain doesn’t work. Instead of fixing it, the authorities erected a construction barrier around it, which, as far as I know, is how it stands today.”
Stalin, Berlin, Germany (2017): “The local municipality attempted to repurpose this spot by putting a fountain in place of the statue of Stalin, but the fountain doesn’t work. Instead of fixing it, the authorities erected a construction barrier around it, which, as far as I know, is how it stands today.”

So he used an old detective technique. “I asked my Czech girlfriend to call her mother,” he says. “I specifically remember her mother directing us, in Czech, which tram line to take to go find this random square where a tank no longer was. She thought we were crazy.”

Mom may have had a point. The square, when they finally found it, was pretty much empty, without even a plaque to acknowledge the history—hardly the stuff of epic photographs, or even a good day trip. But the episode sparked an enduring fascination with what Moore now thinks of as scars on the post-socialist landscape, nearly invisible reminders of dominance, violence, and trauma. The search has taken him all over Eastern Europe.

“Many locals, especially the young ones who may not have lived through the Soviet occupation, walk by these spaces without thinking about it,” he says. “It’s easy to pass by them so often that they just blend into the environment. Being an outsider gave me a different perspective. I trained my eye to see the scars.”

<em>Lenin: Vilnius & Grutas Park, Lithuania</em> (2014/2019): “This cityscape was taken in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, across the street from the former KGB building, where people were once tortured and which is now a museum. The puddle you see, which I consider to be a gift from the photo gods, is where the statue of Lenin stood. Several years later I found that statue displayed in Lithuania’s Grutas Park.”
Lenin: Vilnius & Grutas Park, Lithuania (2014/2019): “This cityscape was taken in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, across the street from the former KGB building, where people were once tortured and which is now a museum. The puddle you see, which I consider to be a gift from the photo gods, is where the statue of Lenin stood. Several years later I found that statue displayed in Lithuania’s Grutas Park.”

The scars can be hard to find, even when you know what you’re looking for. Over the next decade, as internet maps became widely available, Moore developed a process that begins with what he calls “creative Googling”: combing the internet for digital maps and personal travel blogs with clues about places likely to have once held communist monuments. When he finds a promising location, he prints out old photos that offer some context—nearby buildings, for example—that he can use to orient himself in the modern landscape. From there, he triangulates the perspective to determine where the statues once stood, even if all other reminders of them are gone.

The results are unusual for a landscape photograppher: a flower bed, a parking lot, a Tesco with a red Honda Civic out front, seemingly purposeless hunks of concrete. “I’m not looking for beautiful spaces,” he says. “I’m pointing you at a weird thing, in a weird way, which makes the viewer feel weird. That’s intentional. My perspective is very distant and detached. There’s a sense of something being off, of emptiness or oddness in the picture. The photos of empty pedestals are meant to be a little unsettling in that way.”

More recently, he has also become interested in the ultimate fates of the discarded or displaced monuments—the odd and eerie places statues of Lenin and Stalin have ended up. He has found some stored behind buildings, others gathered in private parks. In all cases, they have been relocated far from the towns and cities where they once stood, stripped of their power to intimidate.

<em>Discarded Monument at the Center of a Labyrinth, Czechia</em> (2018): “My wife, who is Czech, was spending a weekend with her girlfriends at a cottage in the Czech countryside—basically in the middle of nowhere—when a friend told her about a nearby labyrinth with a statue of Stalin. There was no town, just a chateau that had been repossessed by the communist government, and then returned to the owners’ family after the Velvet Revolution. The new owners discovered this statue in the basement. Apparently it had been commissioned just before the regime change and never erected. The owners decided to make a tourist destination of this labyrinth in order to generate restoration funds. My wife and kids came with me the day I shot this photo. When we bought our tickets, the lady at the ticket booth said to my daughters, ‘Be careful, at the center of the labyrinth is a monster!’”
Discarded Monument at the Center of a Labyrinth, Czechia (2018): “My wife, who is Czech, was spending a weekend with her girlfriends at a cottage in the Czech countryside—basically in the middle of nowhere—when a friend told her about a nearby labyrinth with a statue of Stalin. There was no town, just a chateau that had been repossessed by the communist government, and then returned to the owners’ family after the Velvet Revolution. The new owners discovered this statue in the basement. Apparently it had been commissioned just before the regime change and never erected. The owners decided to make a tourist destination of this labyrinth in order to generate restoration funds. My wife and kids came with me the day I shot this photo. When we bought our tickets, the lady at the ticket booth said to my daughters, ‘Be careful, at the center of the labyrinth is a monster!’”

These images of what Moore calls “idols” complement the spaces. “At first I was only interested in the scars, or the disappearance of the statues. But I soon realized that removing the statue and transforming the space where it was is only part of the healing process,” Moore says. “In order for this project to be complete I needed to investigate both parts: How do societies heal the scar where the statue stood, but also how do they strip it of the power to intimidate and cause pain?”

He sees wide implications for his project in the United States. “I think Europeans have a better understanding than Americans that statues are actually a form of propaganda,” he says. “We Americans seem to latch on to these objects as if they are a true representation of our history. They are not. Statues and monuments almost always convey a false history—a history that was chosen based on our current political beliefs. That is the whole point of the project. To inform the conversation by examining how societies control historical narratives through interventions in the landscape.”

Moore walked Atlas Obscura through some of his detective work. A show of his “Post-Socialist Landscapes” project will be on display at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon, in late 2021/early 2022.

<em>Discarded Monuments, Memento Park, Hungary</em> (2017): “This is probably the most famous statue park in Eastern Europe. It’s only about 40 minutes outside Budapest, but the bus only comes by every two hours or so, and if you miss the last one, you’re screwed. So the day I shot I made sure to get back to the bus stop with plenty of time—but then, of course, I got bored waiting. So I wandered around the back of the building and discovered a basement room, open to the outdoors, with these busts propped up on pallets. In some ways, they’re even eerier than the statues on display in the park.”
Discarded Monuments, Memento Park, Hungary (2017): “This is probably the most famous statue park in Eastern Europe. It’s only about 40 minutes outside Budapest, but the bus only comes by every two hours or so, and if you miss the last one, you’re screwed. So the day I shot I made sure to get back to the bus stop with plenty of time—but then, of course, I got bored waiting. So I wandered around the back of the building and discovered a basement room, open to the outdoors, with these busts propped up on pallets. In some ways, they’re even eerier than the statues on display in the park.”
<em>Stalin: Budapest & Memento Park, Hungary</em> (2017): “The people of Budapest tore down a huge statue of Stalin in 1956, an act of defiance that launched a revolution. Ultimately that revolution was put down, but the modern monument you see here, which stands in the place of the former statue, is really powerful. It’s designed to look like it’s breaking through the ground. An hour away, Memento Park houses the relief that was at the bottom of the Stalin statue [next to another statue, of Lenin]. To me, the way it’s displayed—lying flat on the ground—it’s almost like a body count."
Stalin: Budapest & Memento Park, Hungary (2017): “The people of Budapest tore down a huge statue of Stalin in 1956, an act of defiance that launched a revolution. Ultimately that revolution was put down, but the modern monument you see here, which stands in the place of the former statue, is really powerful. It’s designed to look like it’s breaking through the ground. An hour away, Memento Park houses the relief that was at the bottom of the Stalin statue [next to another statue, of Lenin]. To me, the way it’s displayed—lying flat on the ground—it’s almost like a body count.”
<em>Stalin, Prague, Czechia</em> (2015): “The Metronome monument you see here stands in Letná Park in Prague’s city center, in the same place that the largest Stalin statue in the world once occupied. The Czech people blew up that monument during destalinization. The Metronome is now a spot for teenagers to hang out and skateboard and whatnot. What’s amazing to me is that, though the statue of Stalin has been gone for decades and the place has been renamed, when my teenage niece meets her friends there, they still refer to it as <em>na Stalinu</em>—'at Stalin,’ as if he’s still there.”
Stalin, Prague, Czechia (2015): “The Metronome monument you see here stands in Letná Park in Prague’s city center, in the same place that the largest Stalin statue in the world once occupied. The Czech people blew up that monument during destalinization. The Metronome is now a spot for teenagers to hang out and skateboard and whatnot. What’s amazing to me is that, though the statue of Stalin has been gone for decades and the place has been renamed, when my teenage niece meets her friends there, they still refer to it as na Stalinu—‘at Stalin,’ as if he’s still there.”
<em>Stalin: Vilnius & Grutas Park, Lithuania</em> (2014/2019): “Grutas Park, which the locals call Stalin World, is at least two hours from Vilnius, just before you get to the Belarussian border. It’s a very strange place. In addition to the repurposed statues, the park features animals like bears and llamas in cages. Communist music plays over the loudspeakers and there’s a pub where you can order traditional communist food. There’s almost no one there. This statue of Stalin standing alone in the forest is especially eerie when you think of how many people he sent into the woods to die.”
Stalin: Vilnius & Grutas Park, Lithuania (2014/2019): “Grutas Park, which the locals call Stalin World, is at least two hours from Vilnius, just before you get to the Belarussian border. It’s a very strange place. In addition to the repurposed statues, the park features animals like bears and llamas in cages. Communist music plays over the loudspeakers and there’s a pub where you can order traditional communist food. There’s almost no one there. This statue of Stalin standing alone in the forest is especially eerie when you think of how many people he sent into the woods to die.”
<em>Lenin, Kolin, Czechia</em> (2015): “This empty knoll is an example of a statue that’s been completely erased. There’s nothing in this spot to indicate that a statue once stood here. In fact, though it’s difficult to see in the photo, just behind the trees there is now a beer garden.”
Lenin, Kolin, Czechia (2015): “This empty knoll is an example of a statue that’s been completely erased. There’s nothing in this spot to indicate that a statue once stood here. In fact, though it’s difficult to see in the photo, just behind the trees there is now a beer garden.”