The Foreign Service Journal, November 2019

110 NOVEMBER 2019 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL LOCAL LENS Please submit your favorite, recent photograph to be considered for Local Lens. Images must be high resolution (at least 300 dpi at 8” x 10”, or 1 MB or larger) and must not be in print elsewhere. Include a short description of the scene/event, as well as your name, brief biodata and the type of camera used. Send to locallens@afsa.org . S oviet leader Vladimir Lenin, sitting and enjoying a book near Druskininkai in southern Lithuania. Statues of him and many of his communist-era contemporaries can be found at Gruto Parkas, a sort of theme park dedicated to preserving and displaying unwanted, and definitely unloved, memorabilia from the days of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Lithuania. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union, the statues were removed and stored. Lithuanian businessman Viliumas Malinauskas collected the statues and other relics, and opened Gruto Parkas in 2001. n BY JAMES TALALAY n LITHUANIA James Talalay is a Foreign Service spouse, currently posted in Kuala Lumpur. His previous posts were Chennai and Vilnius. This photo was shot with a Fujifilm X-T10, 35mm lens. You can see more of the statues from Gruto Parkas at James’ blog, hellotalalay.blogspot.com .