The embalmed body of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin is in good enough condition to remain 100 years or more in the mausoleum on Moscow’s Red Square, experts said on Tuesday after a study.
”The body is very well preserved and there are no indications that it will start to deteriorate,” said Valery Bykov, head of the biological research centre that maintains the human exhibit.
The mausoleum by the Kremlin wall will remain closed to the public until the end of the year because of the examination.
The embalmed body of Lenin, whose real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, was placed in a glass case in the tomb after his death in 1924.
Following the 1991 Soviet collapse, former Russian president Boris Yeltsin planned to have it removed and interred in a St Petersburg cemetery but relented when communist supporters threatened to defend the site.
Bykov refused to comment closer on the condition of the cadaver, telling journalists, ”Vladimir Ilyich is dead and therefore unable to say if he would like people to know about the state of his organs and body parts.”
Lenin will be dressed in a new suit before the tomb is reopened, according to Russian media reports. — Sapa-DPA