The Hindu : Preserving Lenin

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 22, 2003

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International

Preserving Lenin

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW NOV. 21. Russian scientists say that they can keep the embalmed body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, on display in a mausoleum, for at least another 100 years. The Bolshevik leader, founder of the Soviet state, died in 1924.

"Provided the body is given proper care, it can be preserved indefinitely long, for a 100 years at the very least," the head of the conservation team charged with the task said.

It will be 80 years next year that the body was put on display in a glass case in a granite mausoleum outside the Kremlin in Red Square. Each day, there are a large number of visitors. Earlier this month, the mausoleum was closed as the remains were taken for a routine procedure in a special Kremlin laboratory. This procedure takes two months to complete.

"Examination of the body has shown that it is very well preserved and there are no indications that it will ever decay," Dr. Valery Bykov, head of the Biomedical Technology Centre at the All-Russia Institute for Medicine and Aromatic Herbs, told a news conference.

Once every 18 months, the body undergoes a check-up and is given a biochemical bath to prevent tissue from drying up or decomposing. In between the rejuvenation treatments it is monitored by means of sophisticated equipment. This includes a stereo photocamera to detect the slightest changes in the shape of the body, and a device that monitors the colour of the skin. The temperature, humidity and lighting levels in the mausoleum are also automatically controlled.

This year, Lenin will be dressed in new clothes. The clothes are changed once every three years.

The former Russian President, Boris Yeltsin, had wanted to bury Lenin's remains and pull down the Red Square mausoleum in a symbolic act. But his successor, Vladimir Putin, shelved the idea and re-introduced a 24-hour guard of honour at the mausoleum.

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