Vladimir Putin has been named “Bellend of the year” by the British village of Rowley Regis, which has marked the award by erecting a golden statue of the Russian president with a penis-shaped head.
The statue was placed on the junction of the aptly named Bell End and the B4171 urban road. As seen on the pictures circulated on social media, the inscription on the pedestal reads “Bellend of the Year.”
According to the Dudley News, the statue was put up on Thursday morning (December 15) in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, along with a table of eggs which could be thrown at the statue.
The organiser of the protest, who wished to remain anonymous, told the PA news agency: “I needed to award somebody with the Bellend of the Year award and I thought there was one person who has universally been a bellend this year – and that’s Vladimir Putin.”
“You could just throw eggs at the statue, which people did so willingly and quite happily.”
“It’s been very well received. One person said, ‘I thought it was my boss for a second’.”
The co-ordinator added that they plan to create and sell miniatures of the statue to raise money for a charity supporting Ukrainian refugees.
“I’ve seen over the course of the year the devastation that has happened in Ukraine and that so many lives that have been displaced as a result of the war,” they said.
“So I thought, ‘I really want to help out and I want to do my bit and I want to try and raise some money to help those individuals’.”
![[object Object]](data:image/jpeg;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAEAAAABCAAAAAA6fptVAAAACklEQVR4nGNiAAAABgADNjd8qAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==)
The organiser of the statue said it "does what it says on the tin"
Image: PA
Members of the public were offered the opportunity to throw eggs at the statue
Image: PA
Miniatures of the statue will be sold to raise money for Ukrainian refugees
Image: PA
In November, a group of Czech activists auctioned off a statue of a naked Putin sitting on a toilet bowl, wearing a chain with a pendant in the shape of a large letter Z (a militarist symbol widely used as a sign of support of the invasion). The statue also depicts Putin as holding a toilet brush in one hand, and in the other – a washing machine, from which blood seems to flow.
The starting price of the sculpture was €10,000, with the auction slated to end on December 20. The activists plan to use the proceeds from the sale to buy a combat drone for the Ukrainian army.