A wooden statue mocking US President Donald Trump has been set fire and burnt to the ground in Slovenia, the country where POTUS’s wife Melania was born. Slovenian police are looking for the arsonist.
The almost 8-metre construction, unveiled by its creator Tomaz Schlegl last August in a village in Slovenia’s northeast, sported a white suit-clad Trump with his trademark hay yellow tresses, and it quickly became a popular tourist attraction in the area.
The statue’s right arm, with its fist clenched, was raised high, resembling New York’s Statue of Liberty, and there was something to effectively surprise in the wooden Trump – a hidden mechanism that opened a red-painted mouth, exposing shark-life teeth.
According to Schlegl, the mechanism enabled him to fulfil a concrete aim, as “like all populists, the statue has two faces", the constructor noted adding that one is “humane and nice, while the other is that of a vampire".
Despite largely being a tourist site, the statue appeared to fail to strike a chord with some locals, who threatened to torch it, prompting the creator to move the statue to another village, Moravce, where it was eventually burned.
Sarcastic remarks arrived in abundance in the comments section below the news on Twitter:
“Good. I hope they rebuild & burn it again", one posted, with another weighing in:
“Any marshmallows involved?”
A third netizen suggested that it could be preparation for a witch hunt:
— Melisia (@melisianyc) January 9, 2020
…while memes likewise flooded the social network:
— TOMMY (@tommybuffometal) January 9, 2020
🤣😂🤣😂 pic.twitter.com/gJMA8fhNgQ
— Nikki Grayson (@graysonpink) January 9, 2020
This is not the first time in Slovenia that a Trump family member has been monumentalised. Most recently, last June, it was a life-size sculpture of First Lady Melania, born Miss Knavs, carved in wood: the linden statue of FLOTUS caused mixed reactions as it was unveiled in her hometown of Sevnica.
