Joshua Keating of Foreign Policy magazine has a slideshow of what he considers to be the ugliest monumental statues in public display in the world. Pictured above is one of Tsar Peter I (the Great) of Russia, known for building that country's first navy:

Just because communism ended doesn't mean that Russia has stopped building grotesque, propagandistic statues. The master of the form is Georgian-born artist Zurab Tsereteli, best known for the garish 315-foot maritime statue of Peter the Great looming over the Moskva River. The statue was commissioned by Tsereteli's frequent booster, Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, and has fast become a popular tourist attraction, if not exactly for the reasons its planners hoped.

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