Restaurant offering $5,000 reward for return of Lenin’s head

Monday, May 17, 1999 | 7:43 a.m.

The owners want to freeze the head in a block of ice for a nice centerpiece.

"It's been missing over three weeks," said Kelley Jones, director of operations for China Grill Management Las Vegas, which operates the restaurant. "I don't think it's a joke. I think somebody actually did steal it."

A 14-foot, 4,500-pound statue of Lenin marks the entrance to the Red Square restaurant inside the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip. But after the restaurant was open only a few weeks, several customers complained about the likeness of the Communist revolutionary and founder of the Soviet Union.

Circus Circus Enterprises Inc., the parent company of Mandalay Bay, decided to behead Lenin on March 26 after finding out that the heads were removed from many Lenin statues in Eastern Europe.

The head was then hung from the ceiling above the statue.

Sean Nebeker, spokeswoman for China Grill, said Monday that several Circus Circus employees came to the restaurant the next day and asked to see the head so they could remove the hook that it was hanging from.

The head hasn't been seen since.

China Grill is offering a $5,000 reward for the return of Lenin's head.

"We had planned to freeze the head in a block of ice that would be carved into a table and displayed in our vodka locker," Jones said. "We don't care who has the head, we just want it back."

A spokeswoman for Circus Circus did not immediately return a call seeking comment.