Sic Semper Tyrannis

Russia has a rich history and a long memory. And from time to time, it seems willing to do some unnatural things to preserve its past.

Today’s target for me was Lenin’s Tomb, the low red marble mausoleum alongside the Kremlin. It’s encircled with a low rail, well-patrolled by guards, and open to the public a few days a week from 10am to 1pm. I lined up with a few dozen others at one end of the square and waited to be let in. Admittance is free, but strictly controlled – you have to empty your pockets and go through a metal detector. They are quite serious about the rules – no bags, no cameras, and no camera phones. Passing there, you enter the front door of the mausoleum, walk down a flight of steps and enter the crypt.

Lenin is encased in a glass coffin with an ornate metal top, and the elevated path goes around three sides of the sarcophagus. The edges of the coffin are mirrored, so you manage to get a view of the body much as if it were lying in a three-way mirror like the kind found in a clothing store. The rules down here are quite strict, too; stay quiet, keep your hands out of your pockets, and do not stop for a longer look. There are soldiers every few feet, and they are somewhat aggressive when it comes to enforcement. I wasn’t walking fast enough for their liking and I got yelled at to keep moving along.

It isn’t hard not to grind to a halt when you’re staring one of the most significant men of the 20th century in the face, a man whose intellectual and personal charisma forged a new empire out of the ashes of a corrupt and decayed old order. That, and he’s been dead for about 82 years, too. So the awe of a student of history gets mixed in with a healthy dose of morbid curiosity.

The truth is that Vladimir Ilyich doesn’t look so bad considering that he’s been dead a lot longer than he’s been alive. Or, for that matter, even a lot longer than I’ve been alive. There are some “condition” problems with the fingers of the right hand, notably a discolored thumb, and a slightly bluish tinge to his temples. But on the whole, his condition is somewhat enviable even for some living 82 year olds.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union a debate has intermittently flared up about whether Lenin should be removed from the tomb for more conventional burial. For the first time last fall, though, the issue was broached by a high-ranking member of the government. That lends some credence to the belief that Volodya’s days on Red Square may be numbered.

What remains of the communist party raises a hue and cry and holds protests each time the topic is raised. But most of those folks are dying off and soon there won’t be anyone to protest a transfer.

The rest of society seems to be lining up behind the idea. The church considers it unholy to have an unburied person around. Physical incorruptibility is a criterion for sainthood, so having a preserved body from a competing ideology is a bit of an insult, I imagine. Democrats feel offended by the exalted position of a discredited leader of a discredited regime. Others, less ideological, think it perverse to have a preserved corpse at the center of their capital.

Poor Lenin. He never wanted to be preserved or praised. He wanted a simple burial near his family. But politics got in the way; Stalin thought it quite useful to create a cult around his deceased predecessor. Now that he’s increasingly irrelevant, he might just get his way.

But no matter where he ends up, old Vova may end up with the last laugh after all. Just around the corner from his mausoleum, several Lenin look-alikes pose for photos with tourists. For a few rubles, of course.