Letná Metronome

That red pendulum swinging above you is 75 feet tall and weighs 7 tons. Czech artist Vratislav Karel Novák built it in 1991 and called it the Time Machine. But the real story is what stood here before. For 7 years, from 1955 to 1962, the world's largest Stalin statue loomed over this spot on Letná Hill. The monument showed Stalin leading 8 workers and soldiers behind him. It weighed 17,000 tons. It cost 140 million crowns to build. And locals hated it. They nicknamed it the fronta na maso, the queue for meat. Every time they saw those figures lined up behind Stalin, it reminded them of the endless lines they stood in just to buy food. The sarcasm was their quiet rebellion. When Moscow finally ordered it destroyed in 1962, workers used 800 kilograms of explosives to blow it up. The massive plinth remained empty for 29 years. Problem was, all that dynamite had damaged the foundation. When they wanted to install the metronome in 1991, a crane was too heavy to risk. So they brought in a military helicopter instead. Look at the base. Those 2 unlit torches? They're the only pieces left from Stalin's monument. A plaque nearby reads: In time, all things pass.