For years, a stone Joseph Stalin glared down at Prague from a hill above the river.
The granite statue of the Soviet dictator was huge, about 51 feet tall and 72 feet long, with a line of stone figures marching behind him. Locals called it “the meat line,” because the figures looked like people waiting in a queue for food.
The man who designed it never saw it unveiled. Sculptor Otakar Švec took his own life days before it opened in 1955.
Seven years later, the Soviet Union had turned against Stalin’s memory, so the Communist government blew the whole thing up with 800 kilograms of explosives. The huge empty base stayed behind on Letná, a wide park high above the city.
In September 1996, Michael Jackson came to Letná.
Prague had only been free of Communist rule since 1989. The city was picked to launch Michael’s HIStory World Tour, his first tour since 1993, and people there went wild for him.
He landed on September 3. About 5,000 fans blocked a main road outside his hotel, according to Radio Free Europe. Near the Charles Bridge, hundreds more swarmed his car, and it took security half an hour to clear a path.
At Prague Castle he met President Václav Havel, the playwright who had led the country out of Communism. He also stopped by a children’s home and a hospital for injured kids.
And then the statue went up. The tour’s promoters raised a 35-foot statue of Michael at the old Stalin site, on the hill where the whole city could see it.
Some locals found it annoying, while others couldn’t stop staring at it.
MTV sent a crew to cover the big night, and their report is a fun little time capsule.
Michael Jackson – HIStory Tour Prague, Czech Republic September 7, 1996 – MTV Report
The concert took place on September 7, 1996, on the open plain at Letná. Michael’s team had brought in roughly 1,200 tons of equipment from Los Angeles, according to Radio Prague.
Radio Prague put the crowd at about 120,000 people, with thousands more watching from behind the fence. Tour records list 125,000 tickets sold, which made it one of the biggest single crowds of his career.
Czech audiences had rarely seen anything like the giant video projections or the costumes covered in lights.
Some Czech critics sneered and called it “a ridiculous circus.”
The fans didn’t care one bit. Only seven years earlier, a show like this in Prague would have been unthinkable, and now an American pop star was singing to them from the spot where Stalin used to stand.
Michael had spent days in Prague before the show. Czech TV crews tagged along to rehearsals and filmed the screaming crowds outside his hotel.
By the time he walked onstage, it felt like half the country was tuned in.
Luckily, somebody in the crowd kept a camera rolling that night, so you can see the show for yourself, starting with that first roar.