Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
LENIN UNDER GLASS
Red Square is home to the world's most famous mummy, that of Vladimir Ilych Lenin.
When he died of a massive stroke on 22 January 1924, aged 53, a long line of mourn-
ers patiently gathered in the depths of winter for weeks to glimpse the body as it lay in
state. Inspired by the spectacle, Stalin proposed that the father of Soviet communism
should continue to serve the cause as a holy relic. So the decision was made to pre-
serve Lenin's corpse for perpetuity, against the vehement protests of his widow, as
well as Lenin's own expressed desire to be buried next to his mother in St Petersburg.
Boris Zbarsky, a biochemist, and Vladimir Voribov, an anatomist, were issued a
political order to put a stop to the natural decomposition of the body. The pair worked
frantically in a secret laboratory in search of a long-term chemical solution. In the
meantime the body's dark spots were bleached, and the lips and eyes sewn tight. The
brain was removed and taken to another secret laboratory, to be sliced and diced by
scientists for the next 40 years in the hope of uncovering its hidden genius.
In July 1924 the scientists hit upon a formula to successfully arrest the decaying
process, a closely guarded state secret. This necrotic craft was passed on to
Zbarsky's son, who ran the Kremlin's covert embalming lab for decades. After the fall
of communism, Zbarsky came clean: the body is wiped down every few days and
then, every 18 months, thoroughly examined and submerged in a tub of chemicals, in-
cluding paraffin wax. The institute has now gone commercial, offering its services and
secrets to wannabe immortals for a mere million dollars.
In the early 1990s Boris Yeltsin expressed his intention to heed Lenin's request and
bury him in St Petersburg, setting off a furore from the political left as well as more
muted objections from Moscow tour operators. It seems that the mausoleum, the
most sacred shrine of Soviet communism, and the mummy, the literal embodiment of
the Russian Revolution, will remain in place for at least several more years.
Transitional Moscow
The Communist Collapse
The Soviet leadership showed it was not immune to change when Mikhail Gorbachev came
to power in March 1985 with a mandate to revitalise the ailing socialist system. Gorbachev
soon launched a multifaceted program of reform under the catchphrase '
perestroika'
(re-
structuring). Gorbachev recognised that it would take more than bureaucratic reorganisa-
tions and stern warnings to reverse economic decline. He believed that the root of the eco-
