What are Lenin and Stalin monuments doing underwater? (PHOTOS)

An unusual museum lies at the bottom of the Black Sea, 100 meters from Crimea's Cape Tarkhankut. / Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin

or communist revolutionist Vladimir Lenin.

Monuments to famous people are sited below the waves in so-called “halls,” divided from each other by arches. / Founder of the Russian Communist Party, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution Vladimir Lenin

In 1992, local diver Vladimir Borumensky placed the first monuments to Soviet leaders, standing 12-15 meters high, on the seabed. / The first human in space Yuri Gagarin

The USSR had just collapsed and many monuments to Communist leaders and revolutionists were being dismantled. / Russian poet Sergei Esenin

It was then that Vladimir took the dismantled monuments to the Black Sea, and the idea for an underwater museum was born. / Revolutionist Felix Dzherzhinsky

The museum is home to dozens of exhibits. Tourists in diving gear gliding among the monuments and fish are an unusual sight. / Vladimir Lenin

Today’s visitors to the museum can find Russia’s last tsar Nicholas II.