Sculpture of a man working in the sewers
The “Man at Work” sculpture located in Bratislava, Slovakia, depicts a man working in the “sewage” and it is said that this sentence destroyed his love story. The statue is the work of the Slovak sculptor Viktor Holek, and dates back to 1997.
Over time, the statue turned into an artistic symbol of the city of Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia since 1993, which is located on the Danube River on the border with Hungary and Austria and is 60 km away from Vienna, the capital of Austria, and is considered the most densely populated city in Central Europe.
The popular story of the statue says that the phrase “I am a cleaner” changed the life of a Slovak young man, from a peak of happiness to an abyss of sadness that ended with his death. He thought that his work would not stand in the way of a relationship with his lover, but his girl left him as soon as she learned that he was a “cleaner.” She did not care. The girl was brave enough. After the young man told her about the nature of his work, she promised him another meeting to have coffee together, but she missed the appointment and did not come, but the young man continued to wait for her in the same place, until he became sad and depressed, lost hope in life, and died.
The statue is a model of half the body of a sanitation worker, leaning on his hands and wearing a hat on his head. The model comes out of a sewage pipe, and the color of the hat changes due to the many greetings that passers-by give to the statue whenever they pass by it.
Source: websites