Che Guevara in Popular Culture - in Tourism - Monuments and Memorials

Monuments and Memorials

"Guevara is everywhere. He is being reborn. And nowadays, he has won. You will see." — Eladio Gonzalez, Che memorabilia store owner in Buenos Aires

• An average of about 800 international visitors each day make the trek to Che Guevara's mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba. The site, which contains a 22-foot-tall (6.7 m) bronze statue of Guevara, also includes his remains, a museum of his exploits, and an eternal flame in honor of his memory.
• In Venezuela, along the Andean mountain highway near the city of Mérida, an 8-foot glass plate bearing Guevara's image is erected near the top of El Aguila Peak. Guevara visited the spot in 1952 during his travels through South America, which he recorded in his diary.
• Rosario, Argentina, the city of Che's birth, features an Ernesto "Che" Guevara plaza. The centerpiece is a 13-foot bronze "Monument to Che" statue of Guevara, cast from thousands of donated and melted-down keys.
• In Alta Gracia, Argentina, the home where Guevara lived part of his childhood and teenage years, was turned into a museum in 1997. Titled "Villa Nidia", the museum features a sculpture depicting a young Ernesto at the age of 12, along with a tree in the backyard brought in from Cuba in October 2002 on 35th anniversary of Che's death.
• The Bolivian town of La Higuera (where Che was executed) hosts a statue of Guevara as does the bus terminal in El Alto, Bolivia, which features a 23-foot scrap metal sculpture of his likeness.
• The Jintai Museum park in Beijing, China (where Guevara visited Chairman Mao Zedong in 1960), is home to a sculpted bust of Che, designed by Chinese artist Yuan Xikun.
• A park along the Danube river in Vienna, Austria, features a 28 inch bronze bust of a bearded Che in his "trademark" beret. At the 2008 unvieling, the city's Social Democratic mayor Michael Haeupl proclaimed the statue "a symbol of Vienna's intention to eradicate poverty."
• In the autonomous community of Oleiros, Galicia, a ten meter high outline of Guevara's face was constructed by Cuban artist Juan Quintani. The mayor of Oleiros, Angel García Seoane, promoted the 2008 project to "honor Che and all the revolutionaries of the world."
• When Che Guevara visited the Yahala Kele rubber estate in Horana, Sri Lanka, on August 7, 1959, as part of a Cuban state visit to study rubber planting methods, he planted a mahogany tree. Fifty years later in 2009, the now large tree still stands, along with a small memorial at an adjacent bungalow showcasing Guevara's visit. Caretaker Dingiri Mahattaya, who met Che upon the visit as a young teen, remarked in 2009 that "this is the only surviving tree in the world that has been planted by Che Guevara."
• In 2009, the South African city of Durban, renamed Moore Road (in honor of colonial era British General Sir John Moore) to Che Guevara Road, in the revolutionary's honor. This was followed by a statue of Guevara being added to the gallery of "liberation struggle heroes" at Pretoria's Freedom Park.
• In Algiers, Algeria the main avenue along the seaside bears the name Che Guevara. Che visited the capital several times in the 1960s when Algeria was a symbol to African liberation movements after its war of independence from France, and according to the Latin American Herald Tribune, the guerrilla leader "is much loved by and well-known to Algerians."