#TRAVEL My Weekly Powerup | #club100 | The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark | #steemexclusive / 4 photos

One of the icons and major tourist attractions in Copenhagen, must be The Little Mermaid. This is a stature in bronze of a mermaid about to become human. She is sitting on a rock in the water a little north of the centre of Copenhagen. The place is Langelinie. It’s possible to walk along the promenade from the centre of the city. Copenhagen is a city I have visited several times, but two years ago, was the first time I went to Langelinie to see the Little Mermaid. I was familiar with the fairytale of the same name. When I saw her, I was surprised of how small she is. She is much smaller than I had expected. But at least I have seen her.

This statue is based on the fairytale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen / H.C. Andersen, written in 1837. The statue was erected in 1913. The man behind the statue came up with the idea after seeing the ballet about H.C. Andersen fairytale. He asked the ballerina to be the model, but because she didn’t want to be a nude model, she only modelled the face. The wife of the sculpturer modelled the body part.

Since then, she has become a symbol of Copenhagen and a major tourist attraction. But she has also been the object of vandalism many times. She has had both her head and an arm sawn off. It happened to her head two times. It also happened that the whole statue was knocked off the rock by explosives. She has not only suffered from physical attacks.

She has been splashed with paint several times. Often with a written message attached to her. In 2020 she had the words “Free Hong Kong” written in paint on the rock she is sitting on. A few months later after the Black Lives Matter movement, she was again exposed. The words “Racist Fish” was written on her with paint. In 2022, just after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, someone wrote the word “Z” on her. She has been dressed up several times. What I have mentioned here, is only a few out of many, many incidents that has happened to her. But she is still an icon of Copenhagen and one of the most popular tourist attractions.

CC @patjewell

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U.J

Kristiansand, Norway

All the photoes are mine, Ulla Jensen (flickr, Instagram and facebook)

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