Mandela Way T-34 Tank

The Tank in May 2016

The Mandela Way T-34 Tank is a tank located on a small piece of scrubland on the corner of Mandela Way and Pages Walk in Bermondsey, London, England. The tank is a decommissioned Soviet T-34-85 battle tank.

It is a former Czech army tank that was used in the filming of Richard III (1995). It was bought in 1995 by Russell Gray, who lives nearby, for £7,000 then installed in its current location. The tank was the subject of a work by Cubitt Artists and Aleksandra Mir who painted it pink in 2002. It has since been repainted by artists (and also graffitied) many times. In 2009, a company called Graffiti4hire transformed the tank's livery into that of a yellow cab.

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  The T-34 tank's original a military green colour
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  The tank painted pink in 2002
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  Black and cream, swirling design, December 2008
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  June 2009
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  Post-2009 design influenced by American-style taxi cabs.
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  The tank in November 2014
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  The tank in January 2016

Similar graffitied tanks

There are also T-64 and T-72 tanks that have been graffitied in a hippie manner at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Kiev, Ukraine.

The Monument to Soviet tank crews was a memorial located in Prague, Czech Republic, made up of an IS-2m tank on a pedestal. In 1991, the artist David Cerny painted the tank pink and hoisted a large middle finger over the turret in protest against the controversial monument. The monument was later removed and the tank is now stored at a military museum, painted pink.

External links

• More about the tank's history.
• Evening Standard Newspaper – Revealed: the story behind the Soviet tank with its guns trained on council HQ