Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,794
A dead man who must not die ...
The founder of the USSR, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin dies after several strokes after which he was confined to a wheelchair ...
... on January 21, 1924 in Gorky near Moscow.
On January 27 1924, Yossif Stalin (in the background, with fur coat) staged a bombastic funeral!
Lenin's funeral was a state event staged by Stalin. Before his death Lenin had decreed that no cult of personality should be practiced around himself, but what did Stalin care ?!
The members of Lenin's family, especially his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya ...
... resisted his embalming. However, Stalin ruthlessly prevailed and Lenin was buried in a specially built mausoleum on the Kremlin wall in Red Square.
What is often unknown, however: Since then there have been a total of three different Lenin mausoleums!
The first Lenin mausoleum was smaller than the current structure and was made entirely of oak. It was erected in front of the Kremlin wall in just three days, from January 21 to 24, 1924...:
In the summer of 1924 a larger mausoleum was built, the shape and size of which corresponded to today's, but was still made of oak. This structure housed Lenin's body for five years.
In 1930 it was decided to have a new stone mausoleum built as the existing one was beginning to rot. Fine Labrador stone and dark red granite were used as building materials for today's mausoleum.
The architect of all three mausoleums was Alexei Shtusev ...:
During the Second World War, the mausoleum was carefully camouflaged to protect against German air raids, this work had to be carried out by the Bolshoi Theater set builders ...:
Nevertheless, the mausoleum had to be extensively restored after the end of the war.
Lenin's body survived the war unscathed.
The coffin was evacuated to Tyumen in 1942. Lenin has been lying in the mausoleum again since 1945, embedded in an illuminated armored glass sarcophagus. The temperature in the sarcophagus is a constant seven degrees Celsius.
After his death in 1953, Stalin - in marshal's uniform - lay next to Lenin in the mausoleum for a few years ...:
The inscription above the main entrance was changed to "Lenin - Stalin" at that time ...:
Khrushchev had Stalin's body removed from the mausoleum in 1961 as part of the de-Stalinization process and buried in the cemetery of honor behind the mausoleum (the so-called necropolis on the Kremlin wall).
An almost grotesque effort was made over the body of Lenin! During the Soviet era, more than 400 people (around 150 today) were busy keeping the corpse fresh.
Until the 1940s, it was believed that the body was optimally embalmed. In 1924 all soft tissues were soaked evenly with embalming and preserving substances by what was believed to be an elaborate system of interconnected cuts in the corpse.
The surface was treated with a secret composition solution. This gave the skin a more or less natural color and made it elastic again. Lenin's brain had already been removed for scientific "research" at this point.
The founder of the USSR, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin dies after several strokes after which he was confined to a wheelchair ...
... on January 21, 1924 in Gorky near Moscow.
On January 27 1924, Yossif Stalin (in the background, with fur coat) staged a bombastic funeral!
Lenin's funeral was a state event staged by Stalin. Before his death Lenin had decreed that no cult of personality should be practiced around himself, but what did Stalin care ?!
The members of Lenin's family, especially his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya ...
... resisted his embalming. However, Stalin ruthlessly prevailed and Lenin was buried in a specially built mausoleum on the Kremlin wall in Red Square.
What is often unknown, however: Since then there have been a total of three different Lenin mausoleums!
The first Lenin mausoleum was smaller than the current structure and was made entirely of oak. It was erected in front of the Kremlin wall in just three days, from January 21 to 24, 1924...:
In the summer of 1924 a larger mausoleum was built, the shape and size of which corresponded to today's, but was still made of oak. This structure housed Lenin's body for five years.
In 1930 it was decided to have a new stone mausoleum built as the existing one was beginning to rot. Fine Labrador stone and dark red granite were used as building materials for today's mausoleum.
The architect of all three mausoleums was Alexei Shtusev ...:
During the Second World War, the mausoleum was carefully camouflaged to protect against German air raids, this work had to be carried out by the Bolshoi Theater set builders ...:
Nevertheless, the mausoleum had to be extensively restored after the end of the war.
Lenin's body survived the war unscathed.
The coffin was evacuated to Tyumen in 1942. Lenin has been lying in the mausoleum again since 1945, embedded in an illuminated armored glass sarcophagus. The temperature in the sarcophagus is a constant seven degrees Celsius.
After his death in 1953, Stalin - in marshal's uniform - lay next to Lenin in the mausoleum for a few years ...:
The inscription above the main entrance was changed to "Lenin - Stalin" at that time ...:
Khrushchev had Stalin's body removed from the mausoleum in 1961 as part of the de-Stalinization process and buried in the cemetery of honor behind the mausoleum (the so-called necropolis on the Kremlin wall).
An almost grotesque effort was made over the body of Lenin! During the Soviet era, more than 400 people (around 150 today) were busy keeping the corpse fresh.
Until the 1940s, it was believed that the body was optimally embalmed. In 1924 all soft tissues were soaked evenly with embalming and preserving substances by what was believed to be an elaborate system of interconnected cuts in the corpse.
The surface was treated with a secret composition solution. This gave the skin a more or less natural color and made it elastic again. Lenin's brain had already been removed for scientific "research" at this point.
