Project “Mausoleum”

There is an ancient tomb situated on the Red Square of Moscow, right in the centermost point of the city with a real mummy inside. Yes, it’s not ancient of course, it’s only 70 years old, but still there is a tomb and a mummy. A mummy of Lenin, the leader of the first Russian communists who lead the country to the revolution and broke out the Tsarist reign thus wanting to establish the freedom to all, like, poor people.

This is what every Soviet Russian kid was taught at school from his early age. The name of Lenin was considered the most sacred word, together with his depiction. If the schoolboy got as bold as, like, drawing some funny whiskers in the text-book for the Lenin’s portrait he could be severe punished, his parents summoned to school and then the special report could be sent to their job which could cause them being fired or even imprisoned. In other words everything concerning Lenin’s name was a holy cow.
Same way was about his tomb. This place was a real shrine for the multi-national people of Soviet Union. Hundred thousands people when came to Moscow just had to visit the so called “mausoleum” and to get a fast glance on the mummy of the Lenin lying under the bullet-proof thick glass. To do that people had to stand many hours in line through all the Red Square, but it was considered worth of this.
It’s interesting but even now, twenty years later after the Soviet Union started collapsing, the tomb is still at it’s place right on the Red Square and the mummy body of Lenin is still inside. And there are even still lines of visitors waiting for their turn to pay a visit to the Communist leader.

The tomb itself was build of the red stone which was mined only in one place in Russia, in the village Shoksha of Karelia, and is being highly estimated by the luxury architectural designers from all over the Europe. They order this stone even to Paris for some decorations, and so from this stone this Lenin’s mausoleum was built. First it was made of wood though, we’ve told about this in our “Lenin Tomb History” post looking like a stairway pyramid with a platform on top, which was used by all the Soviet Leaders to greet the Soviet People while on parade:

This modern look of this structure wasn’t born at once. There was a special Russia-wide contest for the best design of the future “mausoleum” structure. Some of the photos of those works from the archives are here today, this is how it could look.

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