The top-secret procedure that's keeping Lenin’s corpse so well preserved remains shrouded in mystery to this day.
His eyes are closed, his hair is combed, and his
mustache is neatly trimmed. He is dressed in a modest black suit, and
his arms rest peacefully at his sides.
In a mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square, the body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
lies on a bed of red silk, in an ornate glass sarcophagus. Even 92
years after his death, the corpse of the first Soviet leader still
remains so lifelike that it’s often said to scare small children.Though many assume at first glance that the figure is made of wax, it
is, in fact, the very real and impeccably preserved body of the
Bolshevik revolutionary.
How has the body held up so well for so long? All of the internal
organs have been removed, leaving only the skeleton and muscles behind,
and the body is re-embalmed regularly and lovingly watched over by a
team of dedicated specialists — as it has been since the day Lenin died.
That day was January 21, 1924, upon which the original plan had been
to bury the body. He was, at first, only temporarily embalmed to prevent
decomposition so that a funeral could be held. Then, after a four-day
funeral during which tens of thousands of mourners would brave freezing
temperatures to honor his memory, he was to be buried.
However, four days didn’t seem to be enough time for the mourners.
Foreign dignitaries and citizens wanted to pay their respects to the
deceased leader, so a temporary wooden mausoleum was constructed, and
Lenin’s corpse was placed inside. Thanks to the cold temperatures, which
hovered between 18 and 20 degrees Fahrenheit, Lenin’s corpse remained
almost perfectly preserved.
After 56 days, Soviet officials decided against burial and began to look into permanently preserving the body.Inspired by the freezing temperatures that had preserved Lenin’s
corpse up until then, the original plan was to deep-freeze the body. The
international trade minister at the time, Leonid Krasin, was granted
permission to find special freezing equipment in Germany. However,
before he could get started, two chemists suggested embalming.
Vladimir Vorobyov and Boris Zbarsky argued that freezing the body
would not be a permanent solution, as decomposition, though extremely
slow, would still take place. They argued that a special chemical
cocktail could be injected into the body in order to prevent it from
changing color or shape, or drying up and decomposing at all.
The practice had already been tried on a few bodies and had been thus
far successful. So, with time running short due to rising temperatures,
the government agreed upon embalming.However, by this time, Lenin’s corpse had already suffered some
irreversible damage. Dark spots had formed on the skin and the eye
sockets had begun to sink, as happens during the early stages of
decomposition.
Therefore, before the body could be embalmed, scientists spent months
whitening the skin and researching which chemical mixtures would be
best for preservation. Finally, after almost eight months, they reached a
conclusion, one that remains shrouded in mystery to this day.
Nevertheless, the body would now be preserved and the mausoleum on Red
Square was open to the public again.
Today, the group of scientists responsible for keeping Lenin’s body
in its eerily-lifelike state is referred to by most as the “Lenin Lab.”
These scientists visit Lenin’s Mausoleum every few days.They check that the lighting and carefully calculated temperature are
still perfect for preservation. Every 18 months, the body is taken to a
special facility under Lenin’s Mausoleum, and re-embalmed. There, the
body is washed in embalming fluid and injected with the necessary
concoction of chemicals.
Despite being almost perfectly preserved, there are no internal
organs left in Lenin’s corpse. His skeleton, muscles, skin, and some
connective tissues remain, but the organs were removed shortly after his
death. His brain was taken to the Neurology Center at the Russian
Academy of Sciences, where it has been studied numerous times in order
to learn about the leader’s “extraordinary abilities.”
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