I remember visiting Tbilisi in the early 2010s as a volunteer English teacher and being greeted with this stupid sign as we left the airport.

What other out of place, inappropriate, boot-licking or jusr plain dumb American or other Anglo landmarks come to mind for you?

[especially when they replace the much cooler names given by the indigenous/native peoples of the area]

  • CTHlurker [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    2 days ago

    Denmark is currently having a culture war moment with a Square within the city, which by popular demand was to be named “Palestine Square”. Obviously the useless city government was against it for a while, with members of the county council going out and arguing that names for places in the city shouldn’t be used to make political statements.

    • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.net
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      2 days ago

      Unfortunately, they aren’t using his spinning body to generate power. They instead decided to attach a guitar pick to a pole affixed to his head, and have used that to play “Misirlou” on loop for years on end.

  • whatdoiputhere12 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    statue of george w bush in fushe kruje albania

    parents hometown too so whenever i visit i walk past this fucking abomination monke-rage

    also forgot to mention there’s a bakery named after him lmfao

  • MaoTheLawn [any, any]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    A good one is Bobby Sands street in Tehran, renamed after the IRA activist who got starved to death in prison. The best part - it’s the street that the British Embassy is on.

  • vovchik_ilich [he/him]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    2 days ago

    Obvious answer would be the “Torres gemelas” (twin towers) song by Delfín Quishpe, a famous Ecuadorian singer. It’s honestly the best piece of unintentional dark humor I’ve seen. He also has a song called “qué bonito es Israel” (oh how beautiful Israel is) which says nothing about Israel or its people, instead making vague references to the fact that there too are stars and a moon above the Israeli sky.

  • Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]@hexbear.net
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    2 days ago

    I could mention Ukrainas plass in Oslo, where the Russian embassy is, however Ukraine isn’t exactly Anglo or “American”.

    The only “American” place name in Norway that I’m familiar with is Brooklyn Square in the village of Vanse in Agder County… But I honestly cannot bring myself to be particularly upset about this Woop Woop-ass village having a 1950s Americana-themed street in order to commemorate the area’s history of sending migrant workers to the US East Coast. Although all forms of “Americophilia” should be viewed critically, this specific example I really just find kind of charming and largely benign. Like if I were General Secretary, I would certainly take drastic and in all likelihood unpopular measures to end Seppolandic cultural imperialism in Norway and English-Norwegian diglossia — but I would not touch Brooklyn Square.