The Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin is one of the main attractions and has special historical significance for the country. In the Red Square tomb, the embalmed body of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov has been on display since his death in 1924.

Lenin's Mausoleum is a large granite structure, the architecture of which reflects the style of the early last century. The tomb attracts long lines of tourists who wait for a long time just to see this major Soviet historical figure. Since this attraction is only open for a few hours, your trip here should be planned in advance.

Tourists are attracted by the convenient location: in the neighborhood there is the Kremlin complex with the Spasskaya, Senate and Nikolskaya towers, the monument to Minin and Pozharsky, Okhotny Ryad, Lobnoye Mesto, St. Basil's Cathedral, Kazan Cathedral, and the State Historical Museum.

Opening hours of the Lenin Mausoleum in 2019

In 2019, you can visit the leader’s tomb according to the following schedule:

• Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday: 10:00 - 13:00.

The work schedule changes periodically due to closures for maintenance and body treatment, or restoration work.

Prices for tickets to the Lenin Mausoleum

There is no entrance fee to the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin!

Under no circumstances should you purchase tickets; many are trying to make money from this. These types of offers should be considered scams.

Story

The debate about Lenin's traditional funeral has been going on since his death and continues today. Many activists consider it inhumane to display the deceased, while some ask for burial due to political convictions and a change in the ruling regime. Guests of the capital interested in visiting this attraction should not put off visiting the mausoleum. Since the question remains open, there is no guarantee that the tomb will always stand in the central square.

For the same political reasons, almost a century ago, citizens of the USSR wanted to preserve the body of the first leader of the proletariat, display it, thereby expressing their respect. Initially, the mausoleum building was wooden. The floor plan is still a closely guarded secret. In the first month after Lenin's death, more than one hundred thousand people visited the mausoleum and it was decided to replace it with a granite building. From then to the present day, the number of visitors is in the millions.

There was a case in the history of the USSR when Lenin’s body left the mausoleum. In 1941 he was transported to Siberia when Moscow was in danger from the Nazis. It was believed that the Nazis would destroy the symbol of the USSR. Over time, preserving the body proved difficult. Every eighteen months, Lenin's body is removed from the sarcophagus and treated in a bath with chemical solutions. The level of temperature and humidity in the tomb is strictly controlled so that the efforts of the guardians of the body are not in vain and future generations can see such a significant historical figure.

The body of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was placed in the same mausoleum after his death in 1953. However, later, in 1961, the former dictator was removed from the mausoleum and buried near the Kremlin wall along with other political figures of the Soviet Union. This was done by order of General Secretary Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, who sacredly honored Lenin’s precepts, but fought against Stalin’s personality cult.

These days, the last restoration work was carried out in 2013. The flow of tourists remains consistently high throughout the year, among them not only Russians, but also a lot of foreigners. There are no problems with accommodation in the center of the capital. Within walking distance there are a lot of small cozy hotels and expensive luxury hotels overlooking the main square of the country.

How to get to Lenin's Mausoleum

Visitors are allowed into the mausoleum from the Alexander Garden. There is no entrance fee, but opening hours are limited, hence the long queues. The line passes quite quickly, since visitors do not stay at the tomb for long. The total waiting time, as a rule, does not take more than half an hour.

At the entrance you must go through a security checkpoint and a metal detector. In the Alexander Garden there is a paid storage room where you can leave personal belongings, since large luggage and bulky bags, drinks and any liquids, photo and video equipment, telephones, and metal objects are prohibited from being brought into the tomb. Order and compliance with the rules are monitored very vigilantly, so it is unlikely that it will be possible to photograph Vladimir Ilyich. This is also not worth doing because the camera or phone will be immediately taken away. The phone can only be entered in switched off mode.

How to get to the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin

There are several ways to get to the main square where the tomb is located:

Metro

The metro stations closest to the mausoleum are Ploshchad Revolyutsii on the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaya Line and Okhotny Ryad on the Sokolnicheskaya Line. You can leave a little earlier and walk to the mausoleum, as the center of the capital is replete with attractions.

Ground modes of transport

The nearest bus stop is called "Red Square". It is reached by buses No. M5 and . On the opposite side of the mausoleum, within walking distance there is a ground transport stop "Manezhnaya Square" with routes No.

Mikhail Kalyuzhny

Sacrifice on Red Square

(excerpts from the article)

A lot has been written about the mausoleum, as the tomb of a “leader” and an architectural monument. However, nothing has yet been said about its main purpose to serve as an altar for sacrifices and its main design feature it was the most important state secret, which was owned by literally a few initiates. A picture familiar to every Russian: a cemetery near the Kremlin wall, leaders at the tomb of the “ever-living” and an endless stream of people on a huge square. Why did these men, women and children in bright clothes, with balloons and banners come to the churchyard?

Some of them think that they came here to celebrate the next date of the communist calendar, others came across the whole city to look at the leaders, but the majority arrived at the behest of their superiors. However, no one approaching the step pyramid-tomb even realizes the real purpose of their presence on Red Square - to become a victim of the mausoleum, this monstrous man-made energy vampire.

Although it was possible to guess the key to solving the mystery of the mausoleum “lay” in plain sight. One had only to look carefully at the approaching corner of the mausoleum and see that it was not a corner at all, but some kind of strange corner niche with an internal protruding corner, like a longitudinal spike (there is no such thing in other corners). But the whole point is that it is almost impossible to see it and there is no information about it anywhere I emphasize, nowhere!!! can't be found.

This diabolical thing has an amazing property: “at point blank range” no one notices it. The author, for the sake of experiment, approached two policemen, people with developed powers of observation, who are constantly on duty in front of the mausoleum. When asked if they knew what kind of niche this was (and the conversation took place right in front of her), an astonished counter question followed: What niche?! Only after repeatedly pointing at it with a finger with a detailed verbal description of this architectural detail, the police noticed the niche (more than two meters in height and almost a meter in width). Surprise knew no bounds! But the most interesting thing was to watch the eyes of the policeman, who looked directly at the niche during the conversation. At first the eyes did not express anything as if a person was looking at a blank sheet of paper suddenly, without changing the direction of their gaze, they began to expand and crawl out of their sockets I saw!!! The spell has broken! It is impossible to explain this by the poor eyesight of people in uniform; they underwent a medical examination. The only rational explanation is the special psychotronic, zombifying effect of the mausoleum on others.

Why did the third mausoleum collapse?

The architect of the mausoleum, Shchusev, writes in an article in Stroitelnaya Gazeta: “It was decided to build this third version of the mausoleum from red, gray and black labradorite, with a top slab of Karelian red porphyry mounted on columns made of various granite rocks. The frame of the mausoleum was built from reinforced concrete with brick filling and lined with natural granite rocks. To avoid shaking of the mausoleum when heavy tanks pass during parades on Red Square, the foundation pit in which the reinforced concrete foundation slab is installed and the reinforced concrete frame of the mausoleum are covered with clean sand. Thus, the mausoleum building is protected from the transmission of ground shaking. ... the mausoleum is designed to last for many centuries...” Pay attention to the words of Shchusev “the mausoleum is designed to last for many centuries”!

But already in 1944 the mausoleum had to be thoroughly repaired. Another 30 years passed and it became clear that it needed to be seriously renovated again. In 1974, it was decided to carry out a large-scale reconstruction of the tomb. Let us turn to the memoirs of one of the leaders of the reconstruction, Joseph Rhodes:

“The reconstruction project of the mausoleum included complete dismantling of the cladding, replacement of about 30% of granite blocks, strengthening of the building structure, complete replacement of insulation and insulation with modern materials, as well as the installation of a continuous shell made of special lead. For the entire work, costing more than 10 million rubles, we were allocated 165 days..."

But the realities exceeded all conceivable expectations of the restorers! This is how Joseph Rhodes talks about it: “Having dismantled the granite cladding of the mausoleum, we were amazed by what we saw: the metal of the frame was rusty, the brick and concrete walls were destroyed in places, and the insulation turned into a soggy slurry that had to be scooped out. The cleaned structures were reinforced and covered using the latest insulating and insulating materials. A reinforced concrete vault-shell was made over the entire structure, which was covered with a solid zinc shell." In addition, 12 thousand cladding blocks actually had to be replaced! What we now see on Red Square is practically a remake, not an architectural monument!

But what about the words of academician of architecture Shchusev that the mausoleum was built to last (by 1974, the third mausoleum stood for only 44 years!)? Why did metal, brick and concrete turn to dust? According to the mausoleum, that were fired from cannons, or did the academician of architecture not know how to build? Or maybe the climate in Moscow is such that concrete and bricks melt like snow in the spring?

No guns were fired. The climate for buildings is normal the brick Kremlin walls next to the mausoleum have been standing for more than 500 years and nothing. Other earlier creations of Shchusev in Moscow also have not yet crumbled. And even wooden buildings in Moscow can last for centuries.

For example, in Kolomenskoye in 1825 a wooden “Pavilion of 1825” was built, plastered on the outside. When the plaster was removed from the walls during the restoration of the building in 2005, it turned out that the lion's share of its wooden structures, having served for 180 years, was perfectly preserved, did not require replacement and would serve for a very long time.

The catastrophically rapid destruction of the mausoleum can only be explained by the influence of some mysterious, but completely real forces on it. However, the Indians and Babylonians were well aware of these forces and were not surprised that they had to overhaul their pyramids every 30-50 years. Note that as soon as the Indians in the 16th century stopped (forcedly) using them for sacrifices, the need for repairs also disappeared; no one has been repairing them for about 500 years, but they look great.

The magical rituals stopped and the forces that catastrophically destroyed the pyramids also disappeared! What about our mausoleum? Despite the fact that in 1974 it was actually rebuilt from the best materials using the latest technologies, since the 1990s it has had to be constantly closed for repairs. Apparently, the mysterious destructive process is still in full swing!

Why was the mausoleum actually built?

From the very beginning, the mausoleum building was created according to the laws of magic as the main religious building of black magicians of the 20th century to help solve the problems facing the atheistic state. And the Bolsheviks (especially Stalin) succeeded brilliantly.

The first mausoleum stood for only about three months and was only a “test of the magic pen.” With the help of the second mausoleum as a magical instrument, they overcame the devastation and eliminated the NEP. Stalin defeated the Trotskyists and introduced new serfdom in the country and carried out collectivization. Now he was faced with qualitatively new tasks: to carry out industrialization, create a modern army and establish an absolute regime of personal power; to practically revive the autocracy in a new guise, eliminating not only his political opponents, but also all persons suspicious of their regime. The tasks to implement are fantastically difficult, so in 1929, increasing the magical effectiveness of the mausoleum became a matter of life and death for Stalin. The way to solve this problem has been known since ancient times. According to historical sources, the Indians carried out a complete reconstruction of the pyramids every 50 years not only repaired, but also changed their shape and size (this process is completely similar to the process of improving modern radio antennas over time, new knowledge appears and new tasks arise, so the antennas also change) . Bolshevik magicians followed the same path, so the time has come to create a larger, more powerful magical instrument designed to solve new problems - the third mausoleum.

Looking ahead, let's say that it was not without success. Judging by the fact that by 1941 Stalin brilliantly solved all the above problems, the power of the modernized mausoleum, this “machine for fulfilling the desires” of the state elite, has really grown.

How did the mausoleum work?

In Soviet times (and even now), people at demonstrations and parades moved strictly in a certain direction - from the historical museum to St. Basil's Cathedral. For the convenience of such a movement, the Bolsheviks specially demolished the Iveron Chapel near the historical museum and an entire block of ancient buildings between St. Basil's Cathedral and the Moskva River embankment (see plan of 1907).

That is, the niche in the right corner of the mausoleum looked towards the flow of people, “dragging” the vital forces of unsuspecting people. If you look at the plan of Red Square, you can easily see that the niche “capture” sector is such that no one can pass by the mausoleum without ending up in its “working” zone.

The horizontal spike at the top of the niche, like the corner of a table, faced the opposite direction towards the sea of ​​people. The spike located on top of human heads served as an emitter and a transmitter of zombifying information programs. The process was controlled by an operator located in (or on) the mausoleum.

The energy removed in this vampiric way was sacrificed to the patron spirits in exchange for their help.

Characteristic feature Stalin was most often located above the niche, starting from the very beginning of the functioning of the third mausoleum. Numerous photographic documents prove this.

One of the photographs from a newspaper in 1935 has a strange feature - the figures of Stalin and some of the others standing next to him (above the niche) seem to be visible through the granite blocks of the podium. What is it? Film defect or printing defect in the printing house? Or is the energy of this place such that in some cases it allows an ordinary camera to shoot like an X-ray? Most likely, this is exactly the case.

Features of Bolshevik sacrifices

Ancient demon worshipers (magicians) tried to sacrifice prisoners rather than their own citizens. It was difficult to deal with prisoners in the USSR in 1920-30, so they took it out on their own population. And if there were no problems with this during the Civil War, then at the end of the 1920s such luxury became unaffordable. The country's human resources after the Civil War, devastation, epidemics and collectivization became greatly impoverished. And more and more victims were required.

In that difficult situation, the mausoleum is simply a panacea. After all, it is possible in one day on holidays to drive a million people past the mausoleum (this was planned back in 1924, and this is exactly how they wanted to reconstruct Red Square), turning them into a herd of “energy cash cows” that uninterruptedly supply the shepherds and their masters with “food” .

And it is possible to physically slaughter “cattle” as the total number of the herd increases, without causing irreparable damage to the breeding stock. That's what they did.

On weekdays, a huge line of people eager to see the mummy lined up at the mausoleum. There were so many of them that the authorities had to let people into the mausoleum with tickets, like going to a circus. In popularity, this spectacle far surpassed ballet and opera.

The movement of the queue was organized in a special way; thrill-seekers simply could not help but pass by the ill-fated niche. In addition, the queue on Red Square was arranged so that each person was in the niche “capture” zone for as long as possible. This is clearly visible in photographs from that time. This has been strictly monitored for decades.

In 1924-89, the mausoleum was visited by over 100 million people (not counting participants in parades and demonstrations) from all over the USSR. For about 70 years, not only strong men, but also women and children went to the mausoleum and to demonstrations, causing considerable harm to their physical and mental health. It is not surprising that in the late 1990s in Russia, up to 95% of newborn children had health problems from the first days of their lives. The biological forces of the people were devoured by an insatiable man-made vampire! The demographic catastrophe that has broken out in Russia in our time is a direct consequence of visits to the mausoleum and participation in parades and demonstrations by a huge number of Soviet people!

It is very significant that the extinction of the population in the center of Russia began almost immediately after the introduction of a man-made vampire into operation in the heart of the country!

Well, what about the sexual sacrifices that are indispensable for magical pyramids? Who saw them at the mausoleum? an attentive reader may ask.

Were! What would it be like to be at the altar of Satan without them!

In Soviet times, within direct visibility from the main office of the all-powerful KGB, opposite each other, two centers of semi-legal debauchery female prostitution the Metropol Hotel, and opposite it, homosexuality a shady square with a fountain and a swimming pool in front of the Bolshoi Theater (exactly the same places for ritual sex were set up near the pyramid temples of the Babylonians!). The bronze homosexual god Apollo looked out over the square. These centers, which is very significant and symbolic, were separated (or united?) by Karl Marx Avenue.

In the park with a fountain opposite the Metropol Hotel, in 1961 a monument to K. Marx was erected according to the design of the sculptor L. E. Kerbel.

Stone Marx either came to worship Apollo, or boldly looks at the homosexual rushing straight at him in a quadriga with a naked phallus, pondering the paragraphs of the “Manifesto” on the introduction of “official and honest” socialization of women. But this, strictly speaking, is not so important. The most important thing is that these permanent centers of debauchery and lust were located next to Red Square, not far from the mausoleum and precisely in the niche “capture” sector! Comments, as they say, are unnecessary.

A significant fact: the leadership of the design of the mausoleum was entrusted to the Minister of Defense Voroshilov.

This was done because the authorities considered the future mausoleum as an important military-strategic facility. And it lived up to the hopes of its creators. As facts testify, the role of the mausoleum in achieving Victory is colossal. Let's talk about only one of them.

On Soviet money, the Kremlin and its surroundings have been depicted many times since 1923. But they never depicted the mausoleum! It’s as if there was a magical taboo against his image on banknotes and coins!

The taboo was broken only once, and then after the overthrow of Soviet power. This happened already during the complete victory of capitalism in Russia, in 1995. It was then that money with the image of the mausoleum was first issued.

This was a coin worth 100 rubles, which was minted from silver in the amount of 1,500 pieces. It weighed more than a kilogram (1111.1 g), and its diameter was 10 cm. You couldn’t put it in your pocket! In fact, this is a desktop commemorative medal, not a coin. As you might guess (based on the circulation and the real value of the coin), it was intended mainly for the elite and the Initiates (however, one should not think that their 1500 simply issuing, for example, 5 coins would have aroused too much suspicion in society) , for those who perfectly understand the language of symbols. The symbolism of the coin directly speaks of the decisive role of the mausoleum in the victory over Germany.

On the reverse side of the coin (reverse) are portraits of the heads of the Allies and their facsimiles, to the left of them is Cecilienhof Castle in Potsdam, in the center, from left to right are the national flags of Great Britain, the USA and the USSR. At the top along the circumference is the inscription: “CONFERENCE OF THE HEADS OF THE ALLIED POWERS.” Above the portraits of the leaders of the three allied powers are the inscriptions: “POTSDAM 17.7. * 2.08.1945”, lower left “TEHRAN 23.11 * 1.12. 1943.” and bottom right "CRIMEAN 4.2 *11.2 1945." That is, the most important milestones on the path to victory are presented in symbolic form. The most important of the conferences was Potsdam. It summed up the results of the war.

The front (main) side depicts Red Square and the victorious fireworks in the light of spotlights - a symbol of victory. The mausoleum is depicted in the foreground; in perspective, it is closest to the viewer, so symbolically it is the main one.

Thus, in the language of symbols, it unambiguously tells us that without the mausoleum there would have been no victory, and it was he who had a decisive influence on the outcome of the war. This was possible only if for the Bolsheviks the mausoleum was a real military weapon. From the very beginning, the Bolsheviks attached the most important military significance to the mausoleum, and it did not disappoint. And, judging by the symbolism of the coin, their successors on the powerful Olympus knew this very well!

And if anyone still doubts, here is another very revealing detail. Coin issue date: April 21, 1995. None of the conferences were held in April or May. So what is the coin issue timed to coincide with? Who or what does it serve as a gift? Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, whose ashes lie in the mausoleum, was born on April 22, 1870. April 22, 1995 125th anniversary of the Leader! It is absolutely clear that the coin is dedicated primarily to Lenin’s mausoleum, the victorious magical weapon (how this weapon was used is a special topic)! And the weapon was exactly Voroshilov’s part!

Is the mausoleum dead?

For a long time now, on the days of celebrations, no one stands at the mausoleum. Maybe it has been “sleeping” for a long time and is not being used for its main purpose? May be.

But some facts are confusing. For example, the mausoleum is being repaired suspiciously often, and in the zone of capture of the “niche” (and judging by the reconstruction project of Red Square in 1934, the “radius of action” of the mausoleum is very significant) after 1993 the State Duma, which was in opposition (at that time) to the authorities, was placed, and... she soon became quite “obedient”. And recently they demolished the still strong Moscow Hotel, which was located between the Duma building and the mausoleum.

The modern symbols of some Russian special services are also confusing, for example, the emblem of the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) of the Russian Federation, which is clearly created in the image and likeness of the first Soviet ruble coin and... is very reminiscent of the design (by Shchusev) for the interior decoration of the third mausoleum.

The emblem depicts a pentagram framed by a wreath of oak and laurel branches and a tricolor ribbon, symbolizing the flag of the Russian Federation, one of the main state symbols. There are similar symbols on the coin. The idea that the SVR emblem indicates the desire of this service to trade state secrets, and that Shchusev hinted at the corruption of Lenin (remember the story with German gold!) should be immediately discarded as delusional. Then it turns out that they were created according to the laws of magic, modeled on medieval cabalistic talismans, and the Bolshevik magical traditions are still alive today?

The frenzied battle of the heirs of the tireless fighters against cemeteries in Moscow for the preservation of the graveyard in the center of the capital is incomprehensible Gennady Zyuganov, Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (7.11.05): “We must take an oath today that we will not allow the memory of Red Square to be desecrated. Red stars coexist peacefully there , Orthodox crosses and sovereign Russian eagles. The ashes of all generations who faithfully served and defended our state rest peacefully there.” (see news.ntv.ru/76144/). At the same time, Zyuganov is clearly misleading gullible listeners: it is simply impossible to desecrate Red Square, as historical sources testify, the ashes of only communists who fight God and executed criminals, and perhaps random prostitutes of both sexes, rest on it. And also lion and elephant excrement. And no one else. The communists always didn’t give a damn about ashes, but they always valued weapons, including the “armored train on the siding.”

And only black magicians valued excrement.

But all these are probably random coincidences.

Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin(in 1953-1961 Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin) - a monument-tomb on Red Square near the Kremlin wall in Moscow.

History of the building

The first wooden Mausoleum (designed by A.V. Shchusev) was erected on the day of the funeral of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (January 27, 1924), and had the shape of a cube topped with a three-step pyramid; in the second temporary wooden Mausoleum, installed in the spring of 1924 (design by A.V. Shchusev), stands were attached to the stepped volume on both sides. The initial design of the sarcophagus was considered technically difficult, and the architect K. S. Melnikov developed and presented eight new options within a month. One of them was approved and then implemented in the shortest possible time under the supervision of the author himself. This sarcophagus stood in the mausoleum until the end of the Great Patriotic War.

The laconic forms of the second Mausoleum were used in the design of the third, now existing version made of reinforced concrete, with brick walls and granite cladding, finished with marble, labradorite and porphyry (1929-1930, according to the design of A.V. Shchusev with a team of authors). Inside the building there is a lobby and a funeral hall, designed by I. I. Nivinsky, with an area of ​​1000 m². In 1930, new guest stands were erected on the sides of the Mausoleum (architect I. A. French), and graves near the Kremlin wall were decorated.

During the Great Patriotic War, in July 1941, the body of V.I. Lenin was evacuated to Tyumen. It was kept in the current building of the main building of the Tyumen State Agricultural Academy (Respubliki St., 7), on the second floor in room 15. In April 1945, the leader’s body was returned to Moscow.

In 1945, the central stand of the Mausoleum was built. In the same year, with the new design of the interior of the Mausoleum, the sarcophagus designed by K. S. Melnikov was replaced by a sarcophagus designed by A. V. Shchusev and sculptor B. I. Yakovlev. In 1953-1961, the mausoleum also housed the body of I.V. Stalin, and the mausoleum was called “Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin”. Until a granite slab of suitable (uniquely large - 60-ton labradorite monolith (from the Golovinsky quarry in the Zhitomir region)) size was found, the inscriptions “Lenin” were painted on the already installed granite slab in 1953 over the inscription “Lenin” " and "Stalin". According to eyewitnesses, in severe frosts the old inscription “appeared” like frost through the inscriptions written on top of it. In 1958, the slab was replaced by a slab with the inscriptions “LENIN” and “STALIN” located one above the other. In 1961, the granite slab with Lenin's name was returned to its original place. Simultaneously with the funeral of J.V. Stalin, an unrealized resolution was adopted on the future transfer of the sarcophagi of both leaders to the Pantheon.

In 1973, a bulletproof sarcophagus was installed (chief designer N.A. Myzin, sculptor N.V. Tomsky).

Post No. 1

Until October 1993, there was an honor guard post No. 1 at the Mausoleum, changing every hour at the signal of the Kremlin chimes. In October 1993, during the constitutional crisis, post No. 1 was abolished. On December 12, 1997, the post was restored, but already at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Mausoleum as a platform

Since its construction, the Mausoleum has been used as a platform on which figures of the Politburo and the Soviet government, as well as honored guests, appeared during various kinds of celebrations on Red Square (primarily the May 1st procession and the November 7th parade, and since 1965 the May 9th parade). The General (First) Secretary of the Party usually addressed the parade participants from the Mausoleum. In 1992-1994 there were no parades or processions on Red Square. On May 9, 1995, a parade was held to mark the 50th anniversary of the Victory, which took place on Poklonnaya Hill. On May 9, 1996, a parade was held to mark the 51st anniversary of the Victory, during which the Mausoleum was used as a platform for the last time. Since 1995, Victory Parades have been held again every year, but since 1997, the leading figures of the state have been in temporary stands, built each time. During festive events (parades, concerts), the mausoleum is covered with shields.

Incidents at the Mausoleum

On March 19, 1934, Mitrofan Mikhailovich Nikitin tried to shoot at the embalmed body of the leader. He was prevented by quickly reacting security and visitors. Nikitin shot himself on the spot. A protest letter addressed to the party and government was found on him.

On November 5, 1957, A. N. Romanov, a resident of Moscow with no specific occupation, threw a bottle of ink into the Mausoleum. The sarcophagus containing Lenin's body was not damaged.

On March 20, 1959, one of the visitors threw a hammer into the sarcophagus and broke the glass. V. I. Lenin’s body was not damaged.

On July 14, 1960, a resident of the city of Frunze, K. N. Minibaev, jumped onto the barrier and broke the glass of the sarcophagus with a kick. The fragments damaged the skin of V. I. Lenin’s embalmed body. Due to restoration work, the Mausoleum was closed until August 15. During the investigation, Minibaev testified that since 1949 he had harbored the intention of destroying the coffin with Lenin’s body, and on July 13, 1960, he flew to Moscow specifically for this purpose.

On September 9, 1961, L.A. Smirnova, passing by the sarcophagus, spat at it and then threw a stone wrapped in a handkerchief into the sarcophagus, accompanying her actions with curses. The glass of the sarcophagus was broken, but Lenin's body was not damaged.

On April 24, 1962, a resident of Pavlovsky Posad, pensioner A. A. Lyutikov, also threw a stone at the sarcophagus. Lenin's body was not damaged. It subsequently turned out that Lyutikov had written anti-Soviet letters to central newspapers and the embassies of Western countries in the previous two years.

In September 1967, a resident of Kaunas named Krysanov detonated a belt filled with explosives near the entrance to the Mausoleum. The terrorist and several other people died, but the Mausoleum was not damaged.

On September 1, 1973, an unknown person detonated an improvised explosive device inside the Lenin Mausoleum. The criminal and one married couple were killed, several people, including children, were injured. V.I. Lenin’s body was not damaged, since by that time the sarcophagus was already covered with bulletproof glass.

On March 15, 2010, a resident of the Moscow region, Sergei Krapetsov, climbed over the fence, climbed onto the podium of the Lenin Mausoleum and from there began shouting calls for the destruction of the Mausoleum and the speedy burial of V. I. Lenin’s body. When he was detained by police officers, Krapetsov offered armed resistance, but was still detained. It subsequently turned out that at that moment Krapetsov was wanted for committing a robbery.

The mausoleum at present

Currently, the Mausoleum is open to access every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Access to the Mausoleum and to the burials near the Kremlin wall is through a checkpoint at the Nikolskaya Tower, where a metal detector check is carried out. When visiting the Mausoleum, it is prohibited to carry photo and video equipment, or mobile phones with a camera. You are also prohibited from bringing bags, backpacks, packages, large metal objects and bottles of liquid with you (for those who wish, a paid luggage storage service is available in the building of the historical museum). Access to the Mausoleum is free. In the Mausoleum, it is necessary, maintaining silence and not lingering at the coffin, to make a semicircle around the sarcophagus. For men, remove your hat.

The question of preserving Lenin's remains in the mausoleum

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, some public figures and politicians repeatedly raised the question of the advisability of preserving the Mausoleum and transferring Lenin’s body, for example, to the Volkovskoye cemetery in St. Petersburg, where Lenin’s mother and sisters were buried. In particular, Patriarch Alexy II and ex-USSR President M.S. Gorbachev spoke in favor of burying Lenin’s remains.

Under the slogan “Let’s bury Lenin’s work and body,” the Democratic Union party led by Valeria Novodvorskaya held its unauthorized rally on Red Square in April 1994, which was stopped by law enforcement officers.

If Lenin's remains are removed from the mausoleum, it is proposed to leave the Lenin Mausoleum itself on Red Square as an architectural monument.

In October 2005, the President of Kalmykia, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, told the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Gennady Zyuganov, that he was ready to allocate a million dollars to transport Lenin’s body to Elista along with the mausoleum: “This is our fellow countryman, and we do not forget our fellow countrymen, we honor our history” (according to one of versions, Lenin’s grandmother was a Kalmyk).

At the same time, a number of political forces (in particular, the RCRP-RPK) since the 1990s. To this day, weekly “chain” rallies of supporters of preserving Lenin’s remains in the mausoleum are held. Many of them cite such arguments in defense of their position as the Orthodox relics of saints and the fact that Vladimir Lenin is actually buried, that is, the mausoleum is his burial place and it would be blasphemy to disturb it. Vladimir Putin spoke out in favor of preserving Lenin’s remains at the beginning of his first presidential term:

On January 20, 2011, a deputy from the United Russia party, Vladimir Medinsky, raised the issue of further preserving Lenin’s body in the mausoleum.

This statement caused a great public outcry. Member of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications Robert Schlegel (fraction of the United Russia party) agreed with Medinsky’s opinion. He expressed the opinion that Lenin should be buried not far from Ulyanovsk. The communists, as always, were against it and called Medinsky’s statement a provocation. The human rights movement “Memorial,” which has been demanding the removal of Lenin’s body for several years, supported this idea and also proposed holding a referendum not only on Lenin’s burial, but also on moving the burials near the Kremlin wall. On January 21, the Vedomosti newspaper, citing a source in the presidential administration, wrote about the possibility of burying Lenin’s body and freeing the Kremlin wall from some of the burials, but the press secretary of the Russian Presidential Administration, Viktor Khrekov, said that “this issue was not and is not; this topic is not even considered; This is not a question for today’s generation.” The idea was also supported by some cultural figures.

On January 22, the Internet portal of the United Russia party opened a page on the website “goodbyelenin.ru”, where it was proposed to answer the question: “Do you support the idea of ​​burying the body of V.I. Lenin?” with answer options “Yes” and “No”. As of Sunday evening Template:What?, according to official data, 69.65% of users were in favor of burial, 30.35% were against, with a total of 195,000 voters. However, the communists expressed doubts about the objectivity of the voting results and put forward arguments in favor of the fact that the results were being “cheated” on the site. First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, member of the United Russia party faction Oleg Morozov said that this is a private initiative of Deputy Medinsky, to which the party has nothing to do.

According to representatives of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, on the issue of preserving Lenin’s remains in the mausoleum, the authorities are deliberately substituting concepts and distorting facts for propaganda purposes. There are four points in the position of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation:

• Lenin has already been buried (“Lenin’s body rests in a coffin-sarcophagus at a depth of three meters underground”), so we should be talking about reburial, not burial.
• In other countries (including the USA) there are mausoleums of famous people, and there are also burials in a sarcophagus open to view. Examples are given: the sarcophagus of the Russian surgeon Nikolai Pirogov, the tomb of Marshal Pilsudski, the Grant Mausoleum in Manhattan (with the ashes of the American President Ulysses Grant), the Ataturk Mausoleum in secular Turkey, the tomb of Napoleon.
• There is no indication from Lenin himself (“last will”) that he be buried at the Volkovskoye cemetery. It is also indicated that Lenin “already rests next to his widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya, and sister Maria Ulyanova, whose ashes are in the necropolis near the Kremlin wall.”
• The Mausoleum and Necropolis of Soviet-era heroes are historical “sovereign burials” on Red Square (as are burials on the territory of St. Basil’s Cathedral). This, according to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, rejects the argument about the undesirability of the “cemetery” on Red Square.

State Duma deputy from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Sergei Obukhov said about Medinsky’s initiative:

Lenin's niece Olga Ulyanova repeatedly spoke out against the removal of her uncle's body from the mausoleum. In a 2008 interview with Italian magazine Panorama, she said:

Meanwhile, in 2009, according to VTsIOM data, the majority of Russians (66%) were in favor of burying Lenin’s body, with 38% of respondents from this group believing that this should be done as soon as possible, 28% - later, when the generation who holds dear the leader has passed away. 25% believed that Lenin's body should be left in the Mausoleum.

Doctor of Historical Sciences Vladlen Loginov believes that the Mausoleum, like the noble crypts, does not violate Christian traditions:

In September 2010, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, at a meeting with participants of the Valdai international discussion club, said that the people would decide when to bury Lenin:

Vice-President of the Media Union Elena Zelinskaya commented on the initiative of Deputy Medinsky:

V. M. Lavrov gave his assessment of the presence of Lenin’s body in the mausoleum and the entire necropolis on Red Square in 2006 on behalf of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In his conclusion, he highlighted several points for restoring the historical appearance of Red Square, the first of which reads:

In turn, the President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Yuri Osipov, commenting on the proposal of the Institute of Russian History, told Interfax that

Memory of the mausoleum

In art

• In 1998, artists Yuri Shabelnikov and Yuri Fesenko presented the so-called “Dar” to the public at the Moscow Gallery of Naive Art “Dar”. “art project” “Mausoleum: ritual model”, which is a cake in the shape of the body of the late V. I. Lenin.

To the cinema

• In the fourth Superman film, Antiman, created by Lex Luther, having flown to Moscow for a military parade, activates and directs a combat missile at Soviet generals standing on the podium of the mausoleum from a passing military truck. Superman arrives and manages to neutralize the missile and save the generals.
• In “The Best Movie,” the main character decided to commit the “crime of the century.” He tried to steal Lenin's body, for which he went to prison.
• In The Simpsons episode "Headmaster's Love", several photographs from Patty and Selma's photo album are shown, including a photo of the two of them standing at Lenin's coffin. Also, in the 19th episode of the 9th season, a meeting of the UN General Assembly was depicted, where suddenly Russia declares that the collapse of the USSR was a lie, the sign on the podium is replaced by another one with the inscription “Soviet Union”, tanks emerge from under the parade platforms on Red Square , and the Leader’s body rises with a roar from the glass sarcophagus.
• In the parody comedy “Seven Days with a Russian Beauty,” the mausoleum was used as a McDonald’s restaurant.
• At the very beginning of the film “Stalin LIVE,” Stalin has a dream about an American atomic bomb falling on the mausoleum, and the entire Soviet country dying from an American atomic strike.
• In the film Leon Garros is looking for a friend, a French tourist asks a Soviet guide-translator about how many years the flow of people has not stopped in Lenin Mausoleum. The guide answered them: “Thirty-five years.”
• Lenin’s body itself is shown in the documentary series “Life after People” - the body decays after 40 years without people.

This text is one of them. What kind of body lies in the mausoleum? Is it Lenin's real body, a doll, or a combination of both? Anthropologist and professor at the University of California at Berkeley (USA) Alexey Yurchak spoke about how, at the instigation of the party leadership, the Soviet leader led a double life after death. Lenta.ru publishes fragments of his speech.

Rumors that Lenin’s body was not real began to circulate in the first days after the leader’s death. A few months later, in the late summer of 1924, the Mausoleum opened to its first visitors, and Moscow again began to say that a wax mummy lay there. The rumors did not stop even in the late 1930s, when their repetition was especially dangerous. In a written denunciation to the GPU, a young Muscovite claimed that her friend, in a private conversation, stated that there was only a wax doll in the Mausoleum.

In the early years this was repeated in the foreign press. To dispel rumors, in the mid-1930s, the party leadership invited representatives of Western media to the mausoleum. American journalist Louis Fisher wrote how in their presence Boris Zbarsky, who, together with Vladimir Vorobyov, were the first to embalm Lenin’s body, opened a hermetically sealed glass sarcophagus, took the leader by the nose and turned his head left and right to show that this was not a wax figure.

23 percent

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, rumors that Lenin's body was an artificial replica resumed. In response to them, Ilya Zbarsky, the son of the first embalmer, wrote: “I worked in the mausoleum for 18 years, and I know for sure that Lenin’s body is preserved in excellent condition. All sorts of rumors and inventions about the artificial doll and the fact that only the face and hands have been preserved from the body have nothing to do with reality.”

However, Zbarsky's statement did not stop the spread of rumors. In the late 90s, newspapers published versions of the existence of several bodies of Lenin’s doubles, which from time to time replace the body of the leader. In response to this, Professor Yuri Romakov, a leading expert at the laboratory, explained in an interview with Ekho Moskvy that the body in the mausoleum is Lenin’s real body, is in excellent shape and does not need to be replaced.

In 2008, Vladimir Medinsky, then still a State Duma deputy, said that the leader’s body cannot be considered real, but for a different reason: “Do not be deceived by the illusion that what lies in the mausoleum is Lenin. There's only 10 percent of his real body left there." The weekly magazine “Vlast” decided to check this figure. During the autopsy of Lenin's body and subsequent embalming, internal organs and fluids were removed and replaced with embalming solutions. Having counted the amount of material removed, Vlast came to the conclusion that Deputy Medinsky was somewhat mistaken. The Mausoleum contains not 10 percent of Lenin’s body, but 23.

Two bodies

If we take a closer look at the material composition of Lenin's body, it turns out that statements about its inauthenticity have a real basis. It all depends on how you define it. For the scientists at the Lenin Laboratory, who have been maintaining this body for 92 years, it has always been important to preserve its dynamic form - that is, physical appearance, weight, color, elasticity of the skin, flexibility of the joints. Even today, the joints in Lenin's body bend, the torso and neck rotate. It did not harden, did not turn into a dried mummy, so calling it a mummy, as is constantly done in the media, is wrong.

In order to maintain this body in a flexible state, it has been subjected to unique procedures over the years, as a result of which biological materials are replaced with artificial ones. This process goes slowly, gradually. On the one hand, at the level of dynamic form, the body is certainly real, on the other hand, at the level of the biomaterials it consists of, it is rather a copy - it all depends on the point of view.

During the Soviet years, a special commission consisting of party leaders, doctors and biologists periodically checked the condition of Lenin's body. They studied spots and wrinkles on its surface, the water balance of internal tissues, the elasticity of the skin, the chemical composition of liquids, and the flexibility of joints. Tissues were processed, fluids were replaced with new ones, wrinkles were smoothed out, calcium content in the bones was replenished.

From the point of view of these commissions, Lenin's body condition even gradually improved. But ordinary visitors always saw him motionless, frozen for centuries, in a glass sarcophagus, dressed in a dark suit. Of the open areas, visitors see only the hands and head. No one, except the party leadership and a small group of scientists, saw other parts of Lenin's body, never heard of their condition or the scientific procedures to which the body was subjected.

It exists, as it were, in two modes of vision. The political leadership and close specialists have always seen one body, and ordinary citizens - another. The political role that the body played in Soviet history arguably went far beyond a simple propaganda symbol, supposedly needed to mobilize the popular masses in support of the party and government.

Lenin and Leninism

It seems to me that over the years Lenin’s body began to fulfill another political task. To understand this, let's go back to the early 1920s. In the spring of 1922, Lenin felt sick and tired; at the insistence of the party leadership, he left for several months in Gorki, near Moscow.

Living there under the supervision of doctors, he continued to lead the party and come to meetings in Moscow. But in May 1922 he suffered a stroke, as a result of which he temporarily lost the ability to speak, read and write. The party leadership established strict control over information about the political situation in the country that could reach Lenin.

The new rules reflected not only a real concern for the leader’s health, but also a desire to neutralize a strong political rival. In June 1922, Central Committee Secretary Leonid Serebryakov complained in a letter to a friend that Dzerzhinsky and Smidovich were “guarding Lenin like two bulldogs,” not allowing anyone to come close to him or even enter the house where he lived.

Over the next year and a half, Lenin's condition worsened, briefly improved, and worsened again. In the spring of 1923, after the third blow, he almost completely lost the ability to communicate with others. Meanwhile, political rivalry within the party leadership increased sharply.

In this context, the leader did not disappear from the political arena of the country; his image changed, acquiring a completely new shade. The real Lenin, who continued to live in Gorki and write texts, was isolated from political life. At the same time, a new canonical image was created in the political language. Most of the mythological images of Lenin, which are well known to us from Soviet times, were created precisely during that period of his illness, several years before his death.

In early 1923, the term “Leninism” was introduced into the country’s public language. Soon, rituals of the oath of allegiance to Leninism appeared in party practice. In March 1923, the Institute of Leninism was established in Moscow. In the spring of 1923, Pravda called for turning over any piece of paper on which something was written by Lenin’s hand to this institution.

At the same time, what the leader actually thought, said and wrote in 1922-1923 was completely separated from his canonical image. Lenin as a political figure in the last years of his life found himself divided in two: one part of him was excluded from the political life of the country, and the second part was canonized. It was through these two processes of exclusion and canonization that the new doctrine of Leninism was created in the early 1920s.

Since then, every Soviet leader, from Stalin to Gorbachev, has been adjusting this doctrine, inventing his own version, introducing previously unknown Leninist works and introducing others, giving a new interpretation to known materials, quoting Lenin out of the original context, changing the meaning of his statements and facts of life.

In 1990, less than a year before the collapse of the Soviet state, the Central Committee of the CPSU recognized that all previous versions of Leninism contained a distortion of real Leninist thought. In December of the same year, a professor at the department of Marxism-Leninism wrote in the newspaper “Workers' Tribune”: “Our tragedy lies in the fact that we do not know Lenin. We have never read his work in the past and we do not do so now. For decades, we have perceived Lenin through intermediaries, interpreters, popularizers and other distorters.”

The historian complained that the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, the main authority on Lenin's legacy, for 70 years performed a special function, giving approval to the publication of those Leninist texts that corresponded to the currently accepted canons, no matter how far they were from the real ones words of the leader, changing or shortening other texts that did not correspond to these canons.

In his speech on the 120th anniversary of Lenin's birth in April 1990, Gorbachev declared: "Lenin remains with us as the greatest thinker of the 20th century." Then he added that it is necessary to rethink Lenin’s theoretical and political legacy, get rid of the distortion and canonization of Lenin’s conclusions, and proposed abandoning the term “Leninism.”

Death

Lenin died on January 21, 1924. At first there was no plan to preserve his body for centuries. Immediately after the leader’s death, professor of medicine Alexey Ivanovich Abrikosov performed an autopsy and then a temporary embalming procedure in order to preserve the body for 20 days while the public farewell took place.

During the autopsy and temporary embalming process, Abrikosov cut many arteries and large vessels. Subsequently, the professor said that if plans for the long-term preservation of Lenin had existed at the time of his death, he would not have done this, since when embalming a body for a long time, these vessels are used to deliver embalming fluid to all parts of the body.

Then the body was exhibited for a public farewell in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Despite the exceptionally cold winter, when the temperature remained below minus 28 for several months in a row, crowds of citizens flocked to the capital from all over the country to pay their last tribute to the leader.

Lenin's funeral was scheduled for January 27. Six days after his death, a wooden mausoleum was built on Red Square next to the graves of the revolutionaries, in which the leader was to be buried. On January 27, Lenin’s body was transferred there, but it was decided not to close the sarcophagus for a while - due to the ongoing procession of those wishing to say goodbye to the leader.

Every three days, the commission for organizing the funeral, consisting of party leaders and close doctors, checked the condition of the body. Due to the low temperature and thanks to high-quality temporary embalming by Abrikosov, no signs of decomposition appeared on the body - it could be left open.

The first obvious signs of decomposition appeared only two months later, in March. Thanks to the unexpectedly long period during which they were absent, the party leadership had the opportunity to delay the burial and simultaneously discuss his possible fate.

Lenin will live

At the endless meetings of the commissions to perpetuate the memory of Lenin, heated debates took place, and it was then that the proposal to preserve the body for a longer period won. At first, many in the party leadership considered this idea not only utopian from a scientific point of view, but also counter-revolutionary. For example, Trotsky, Bukharin and Voroshilov believed that the long-term preservation and public display of Lenin's body turns it into a semblance of religious relics and directly contradicts the materialist principles of Marxism. Bonch-Bruevich agreed that “it is not the body that is important, but the memorial”: Lenin should be buried in a mausoleum that fulfills this task.

But other members of the country's leadership - for example, Leonid Krasin - argued that if it was possible to preserve the body for another period, even if not forever, this would make sense. At the very least, this will allow the working people of the whole world to take part in a long farewell to the leader of the world proletariat.

The meeting of the commission for organizing the funeral on March 5, 1924 was decisive in Lenin’s fate. After another long discussion of possible options with medical scientists, most of whom expressed skepticism about the possibility of long-term preservation, members of the party leadership asked them to leave the room. The participants in the discussion differed in their opinions, and nothing was decided that day. More precisely, the solution was half-hearted: we will try to save it, but without the certainty that this is possible and necessary, and without promises that it will last forever.

At the end of March, it was decided to try an experimental method of embalming the body, proposed by Professor Vladimir Vorobyov from Kharkov and biologist-biochemist Boris Zbarsky. The procedure had no analogues, and neither Vorobiev nor Zbarsky were confident of its success. They worked for four months in a special laboratory created right inside the temporary mausoleum. They had to invent and adjust many procedures on the fly.

Lenin is alive

By the end of July 1924, they reported to the party leadership that the work had been completed. If the body was processed and embalmed according to their method, they said, there was a high likelihood that it would be preserved for quite a long time. When members of the commission asked how long they should expect, Vorobyov said: “I allow myself not to answer this question.”

On July 24, an official statement appeared in the Soviet press, reading: “Of course, neither we nor our comrades wanted to create from the remains of Vladimir Ilyich any relics through which we could popularize or preserve his memory. We have attached and continue to attach the greatest importance to preserving the image of this wonderful leader for the younger generation and future generations.”

Photo: Keystone Pictures USA / ZUMA / Globallookpress.com

This statement by the commission revealed the same paradoxical attitude towards Lenin’s body that was present in numerous disputes about his fate. The way party leaders and close scientists spoke about it when it became known that it would not decompose for some time is reminiscent of how the party leadership treated Lenin in the last months of his life. At that time, the still living leader was excluded from political life and hidden in Gorki, near Moscow, and another, canonized Lenin appeared in the public language of the party press and speeches. In the discussions of the commission on organizing the funeral, we are faced with a similar dual attitude, when plans for the burial of the leader were discussed and at the same time plans for keeping him unburied, a closed crypt and public display.

This duality was reflected in the fact that for months, disputes and discussions of Lenin’s body were carried out simultaneously in two different commissions. The first was called the commission for organizing the funeral, and the second was the commission for preserving the body. Many party leaders took part in the work of both. The perception of Lenin among the party leadership was strange: as if there were two bodies in the mausoleum - an ordinary, gradually decomposing human corpse, and the physical embodiment of something greater, grandiose, different from Lenin and superior to him.

Although at the time of embalming these two bodies were still composed of the same biological matter, this state of affairs, as we already know, did not last long. The ambivalent attitude towards Lenin's body among the party leadership was reproduced in subsequent years.

Great Legitimator

In Soviet times, a political model arose that linked the principle of reproduction of sovereign power with the principle of doubling the leader’s body. It arose unexpectedly and unplanned - several conditions simply coincided: a long period of illness, when Lenin was simultaneously isolated from political life and canonized in the image of Leninism. Due to the cold of that winter, the body did not decompose, which made it possible to discuss its fate. It is also important to take into account the features of the socio-cultural organization of the new type of Leninist party - a unique political institution.

In the Soviet political system, the culture of sovereign power resembled a mixture of two models: absolute monarchy and liberal democracy, where the role of the body is played by absolute truth. Unlike a sovereign monarchy, no leader of the party or state after Lenin could take his place, located outside the political space. The truth in this system was expressed in the language of Leninism.

Any leader of the USSR, including Stalin, was obliged to appeal to Leninism to legitimize his power and could not question this doctrine or replace it with another truth. Each of them could lose the reins of power if it turned out that he was distorting Leninism. This thesis is illustrated by two of the most important phenomena of power in the Soviet system: the emergence of the exclusive personality cult of Stalin and his complete debunking after his death.

Now it becomes clear what role Lenin’s body played in the political system of the USSR. It functioned as the material embodiment of the heroic depersonalized subject, the Soviet sovereign. It was doubled, being a combination of mortal and immortal bodies. The way Lenin's body was maintained over the decades reflected the combination of these two themes. The mortal body of the sovereign was the corpse of a specific person, and the immortal body was a funerary doll, which was reproduced through special procedures and rituals.

The constant rumors that Lenin's body is just a copy are to some extent false and to some extent true. It is real, but it is constantly changing. Its biological materials are replaced with new ones, but as a result its form remains unchanged. This project emerged gradually - as part of a complex cosmology, the meaning of which for the party system, including its leadership, was never completely clear.

Work on Lenin's body was always carried out in an atmosphere of strict secrecy, behind closed doors. The same thing happened with Lenin’s texts, statements and biographical facts. Thanks to this approach, Leninism always looked like something fundamental, unchanging and eternal, while in reality it was imperceptibly changing, being adjusted by the party leadership to the needs of the current moment. This doctrine, in this approach, looked like the source of party action, and not the product of party manipulation, and the same applied not only to the texts, but also to Lenin’s body.

Photo: CHROMORANGE / Bilderbox / Globallookpress.com

With the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, Lenin's body found itself excluded from it. The post-Soviet Russian state did not close the mausoleum, but sharply reduced its funding. Over the past 25 years, no clear decision has been made about the fate of Lenin’s body. Today it remains in the mausoleum for public access, and the laboratory continues to operate. The end of the Soviet system did not lead to the automatic destruction of this body, did not turn it into a frozen, decaying corpse, but at the same time it did not turn it into an artificial doll.

In the 20s, the beginning was laid for the formation of an outstanding work of Soviet architecture - the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin.

On January 21, 1924, V.I. Lenin died. The government commission for organizing the funeral on the night of January 24 instructed Academician. A. Shchusev to draw up a project for the Mausoleum. In a short time, the architect had to solve complex creative problems.

Fighters who gave their lives for the cause of October were buried in mass graves near the Kremlin wall. Here, on the first anniversary of the October Revolution, V.I. Lenin spoke at the opening of the memorial plaque of the sculptor S. Konenkov. On the spot where Lenin gave a fiery speech, the Mausoleum was to be erected. By the day of the funeral - January 27, 1924 - the temporary wooden Mausoleum was opened.

The design of the first temporary Mausoleum was a parallelepiped in plan, with L-shaped symmetrical extensions of stairs adjoining it on both sides. The visitor had to go down the right staircase, walk around the sarcophagus on three sides and go up the left staircase. The temporary Mausoleum, which embodied the project only in basic terms, lasted two months.

A. Shchusev was commissioned to create a new Mausoleum using the same material, but in a more advanced monumental form. The second wooden Mausoleum was built in March 1924 and was opened in August of the same year. It was a stepped composition. Tribunes for party and government leaders were located on the sides. The height of the Mausoleum is 9 m, length 18 m. To preserve the wooden parts for a long period, they were coated with oil varnish, which gave the entire structure a noble light brown color. The rods, doors, and columns of the crowning portico were made of black oak. The wooden paneling was reinforced with forged nails with large curly heads. Above the main portal there is a laconic inscription - “LENIN”.

The external forms of the Mausoleum truly expressed the internal space. The ledges of the side extensions corresponded to the external and internal staircases, and the stepped shape of the middle pyramidal part corresponded to the structure of the internal ceiling of the funeral hall. The wooden stands were somewhat shorter and higher than the granite ones that were subsequently built. The wooden Mausoleum existed for five years - from 1924 to 1929.

The image of the Mausoleum entered the consciousness of the masses and became dear as a memory of the leader. Therefore, it was decided to reproduce the forms of the wooden Mausoleum in stone. The development was also entrusted to A. Shchusev. The stone Mausoleum was built from July 1929 to October 1930 in the same place where the wooden one stood: at the Kremlin wall on the transverse axis of Red Square, formed by the Senate Tower and the majestic dome of the building of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

The plan of the granite mausoleum, in principle, repeats the plan of the previous wooden one. The axis-oriented main entrance leads to the entrance hall. Opposite the entrance on the wall is a bas-relief of the Soviet coat of arms, made according to a sketch by sculptor I. Shadr. From the lobby there is a three-meter wide staircase, the walls of which are lined with labradorite. The staircase leads to a cubic-shaped funeral hall with a side of 10 m, ending with a stepped ceiling. Along the perimeter of the hall there is a wide black band of labradorite, on which are placed red porphyry pilasters, emphasized on the right by stripes of black polished labradorite. Between them runs a zigzag-shaped “ribbon” made of bright red smalt, reminiscent of bowed stylized Red Banners. The design of the Mausoleum is a reinforced concrete frame with brick filling of the walls, which are lined with polished stone. The Mausoleum uses many types of natural stone brought from different parts of the country: marble, labradorite, granite, porphyry.

The volumetric-spatial composition of the stone Mausoleum also basically repeats the composition of the wooden one. But the new Mausoleum has larger ledges and is larger in absolute size: the length along the facade is 24 m, the height is 12 m. Its crowning part is shifted closer to the Kremlin wall, while in the wooden Mausoleum it was located closer to the main facade. The stepped-pyramidal part consists of five ledges of different heights - there were six of them in the wooden Mausoleum. In 1945, a central stand was built on the first ledge.

In connection with the construction of the granite Mausoleum, work was carried out to reconstruct Red Square: granite stands were built for 10 thousand people. (I. Frenchman). The cobblestone surface of the square was replaced with granite paving stones. The monument to Minin and Pozharsky was moved to St. Basil's Cathedral and turned to face the flow of the demonstration. The mass graves near the Kremlin wall have been redeveloped. The Kremlin wall between the Spasskaya and corner Arsenal towers has been restored. In order for the Mausoleum to occupy the highest place and for the purpose of technical improvement, a vertical layout of the entire area was carried out.

The Lenin Mausoleum is both a tombstone for the leader and a platform on the square, which on the days of revolutionary holidays and demonstrations turns into the center of national celebrations. The monumentality of the structure, its deep ideological content, organic unity with the ensemble of the square, accessibility for the broad masses of the people - these are the features that determined the expressiveness of the image of the Mausoleum.