In the Beatles’ home city, you’re never far from an image of Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and John Lennon. But this statue, which was unveiled on the Pier Head in 2015, became an instant landmark. It was donated by The Cavern Club where the band famously played many of their earliest gigs. Sculptor Andy Edwards took his inspiration from a photo shoot in 1963, the year they rocketed to fame. He said: “This is a statue that needs no title, no explanation, no instruments, no gimmicks. It's a monument to a moment and the moment started in Liverpool."

Photo Paul from Pixabay

To 1960s teenagers living in the Soviet Union, the Beatles’ pop songs (and long hair) represented the freedom of the West. And this monument in Mongolia’s capital city was built on the spot where teens congregated to listen to forbidden music and share ideas. Behind the apple is a sculpture of a boy playing a guitar, who has been inspired to create his own music. The whole thing was built with public donations and the area renamed Beatles Square. The artwork still resonates strongly with that generation who, in recent years, fought off threats from developers to remove it.

Photo: Anagoria, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

These concrete Beatles, 36ft high and each weighing four tons, are the work of 90-something sculptor David Adickes. They have become a tourist attraction in downtown Houston and a road trip detour for Beatles fans. After a spell outside Adickes’ studio, they are residing at the 8th Wonder Brewery while they wait for a buyer (at an asking price of $350,000 for the set). The brewery’s president is in no hurry to reclaim his space, saying: “Like everyone, I grew up with the Beatles…so I’m honoured and happy to have them.”

Photo: delightindessert, Pixabay

Beatlemania lives on in Kazakhstan. Since 2007, visitors to Kok Tobe Park in its largest city, Almaty, have been greeted by the Fab Four as they exit the cable car that climbs the park’s steep hill. The ‘monument’ plays Lennon/McCartney songs through speakers and there’s plenty of room on the bench for selfies. Sculptor Eduard Kazarian won a competition to create the work which sits among other diversions including an amusement park and a restaurant styled as a Kazadhstani nomadic dwelling.

Photo: Davide Mauro, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This Beatles tribute was erected in 2006 as part of a groovy, UK-oriented quarter of Donetsk, an industrial city in Eastern Ukraine. It sat at the entrance of a Liverpool-themed hotel that eclectically juggled Grenadier Guards dummies with Beatles artwork. Sadly the city has been badly affected by the war between Russian and Ukraine, and it’s not clear if the tribute has survived.

Photo: Olya Usovaツ, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The sight of John Lennon strumming his guitar in a leafy plaza in Almería, south-eastern Spain, takes British tourists by surprise. The work of Carmen Mudarra, it is there to mark the autumn of 1966, when 25-year-old Lennon filmed Richard Lester’s black comedy How I Won The War in the city. He and his wife Cynthia rented a grand semi derelict house, where he composed Strawberry Fields Forever. The song was about a memory of playing in the grounds of the Salvation Army children’s home in Liverpool and was possibly inspired by the house’s similarly ornate gates.

Photo: PhotoLanda, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, , Fickr

In Soviet times, Beatles records could only be bought on the black market. Five decades later, the group are seen as a positive influence in Russian society. This replica of the Abbey Road cover by Anton Gnedykh was commissioned to encourage applications to Tomsk State University in Siberia, and rests on the campus by the main entrance. Six years earlier the city’s mayor Nikolai Nikolaychuk had already expressed an interest in erecting a bronze of the Beatles in Tomsk. “We've got a lot of music fans and those brought up on Beatles music," he’d said. "Many of them are wealthy people.”

Photo: Светлана Химочка, Pixabay

Cuban president Fidel Castro was not a Beatles fan. In fact, he described their music as ‘ideological diversionism’ and banned it. However John Lennon’s rocky relationship with the USA changed his mind entirely. In 2000, he unveiled this bronze, created by José Villa Soberón, to mark the 20th anniversary of Lennon’s death. The park where it sits was also named John Lennon Park. An inscription quotes from Imagine: ‘Dirás que soy un soñador pero no soy el único’. “i too am a dreamer,” explained Castro, “who has seen my dreams turn into reality.”

Photo: Christopher Hughes, CC BY-SA 3.0 US via Wikimedia Commons

Our second Kazakhstani Beatles statue was new to the capital Astana in 2021, and according to Kazakhstani posters on Reddit there are more around the country. A poster asked: Why so much love for the Beatles in Kazakhstan? “It’s almost like the Beatles were a worldwide phenomenon,” came the sarcastic reply.

Photo: DescrIlya Varlamov, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons