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November 30, 2009

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Lenin statue beheaded

Monday, March 29, 1999 | 8:27 a.m.

The new Mandalay Bay hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip said it removed the head from a statue of Vladimir Lenin after receiving complaints about the likeness of the Communist revolutionary and founder of the Soviet Union. Sarah Ralston, spokeswoman for Mandalay Bay's parent company Circus Circus Enterprises, said she didn't know what the statue cost.

"We had people who, while relatively small in number, felt very strongly that this was not something that belonged in Mandalay Bay," Ralston said. "The bulk of people we heard from were retired servicemen."

Ralston said Circus Circus researched the issue and found that in Eastern Europe, the heads were removed from many Lenin statues. So instead of removing the statue, Mandalay Bay removed the head.

"In a lot of those rural areas, they didn't have equipment or money to remove those things, so they just lopped the heads off," Ralston said. "It seemed like an appropriate solution to a problem that we didn't want to nag at us."

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