Where is lenins corpse

Many were opposed to doing anything more than a burial in Red Square. Other party members, however, pointed to the long lines of people who still wanted to bid farewell to their leader; more than , people had already queued up to pay their respects.

By July, they were able to report that the corpse could remain in good shape indefinitely, as long as it was re-embalmed and cared for at regular intervals. This discovery represented a smashing success for Soviet science. Thus, the corpse of Lenin was transformed from the remains of a once-living person into a monument to the Russian Revolution and the Communist way of life. Even today, nearly 30 years after the demise of the U. Last year, more than 2. Armchair pathologists, by the way, are still arguing over whether Lenin died of a stroke or the neurological complications of tertiary syphilis—or both.

During his final months, he demonstrated many symptoms of neuro-syphilis, including terrible headaches, seizures, nausea, insomnia and partial paralysis. Lenin may also have been briefly dosed with Salvarsan, the arsenical compound developed by Dr. Paul Ehrlich in to treat syphilis in the pre-antibiotic era. Unfortunately, we may never know the precise answer, unless the Moscow Institute of the Brain releases their precise post-mortem findings.

Thus, the preservation team could not infuse embalming fluids through those vessels—the most common way to deliver such chemicals through a body. Initially, the body was going to be preserved by deep-freezing. However, two eminent chemists, Vladimir Vorobyov and Boris Zbarsky, suggested preservation by chemical enablement instead.

They argued that the body would continue to rot even if kept at an extremely cold temperature. In fact, the body had already started to show signs of decay. So, the official preservation process began with a team of scientists working around the clock to whiten any visibly rotten spots and determine the correct dosage of chemicals required.

It took roughly four months for the team of scientists to ready the body for viewing. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK". Sign Up. For thousands of years humans have used embalming methods to preserve dead bodies. But nothing compares with Russia's year-old experiment to preserve the body of Vladimir Lenin, communist revolutionary and founder of the Soviet Union.

Generations of Russian scientists have spent almost a century fine-tuning preservation techniques that have maintained the look, feel and flexibility of Lenin's body. This year Russian officials closed the Lenin Mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square so that scientists could prepare the body for public display again in time for the Soviet leader's th birthday anniversary today.

A core group of five to six anatomists, biochemists and surgeons, known as the "Mausoleum group," have primary responsibility for maintaining Lenin's remains. They also help maintain the preserved bodies of three other national leaders: the Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and the North Korean father—son duo of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il, respectively. The Russian methods focus on preserving the body's physical form—its look, shape, weight, color, limb flexibility and suppleness—but not necessarily its original biological matter.

In the process they have created a "quasibiological" science that differs from other embalming methods. Yurchak has been writing a book describing the history of Lenin's body, the history of the science that arose around it, and the political role that the body and science have played in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras. Much of his material comes from original interviews with Russian researchers working at the "Lenin Lab" Yurchak's nickname for the institute. When Lenin died in January , most Soviet leaders opposed the idea of preserving his body beyond a temporary period of public display.

Many envisioned a burial in a closed tomb on Moscow's Red Square. But the cold winter kept Lenin's publicly displayed corpse in fair condition for almost two months as huge crowds waited to pay their respects. That also gave the leaders time to reconsider the idea of preserving the body for a longer period. To avoid any association of Lenin's remains with religious relics, they publicized the fact that Soviet science and researchers were responsible for preserving and maintaining it.

Additionally, Stalin uses extremely formal language, suggesting that the embalmment process was a solemn and somber occasion. Russian Studies. The Life of Lenin. Tumarkin, Nina. Lenin Lives!