It had been part of the cityscape for more than 50 years, visible from afar with its 23-meter height and 7.5 metric tons. To everyone's surprise, the largest Lenin statue in Central Asia, located in Osh – Kyrgyzstan's second-largest city – vanished overnight. Authorities in this city of 300,000 residents quietly dismantled the monument during the night of June 6 to June 7, provoking either relief or anger within this former Soviet republic. The reactions reflected the complexity of the Soviet legacy across the country, where nostalgia for the USSR has remained widespread despite the rise of Kyrgyz nationalism.

The bronze monument celebrating Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the architect of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and the first leader of the Soviet Union, was the largest in the region not to have been taken down after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. "This is a common practice aimed at improving the architectural and aesthetic appearance of cities," explained the office of the mayor, Zhenishbek Toktorbaev, who was recently appointed. He urged people not to "politicize" the move and cited examples of "Russian cities where Lenin monuments have also been dismantled or relocated." According to city hall, the monument would be "relocated," and in its place, "a [Kyrgyz] flag on a 95-meter-high mast" would be erected.

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