It seems to me that the main reason Putin will remove Lenin, if he in fact does, is simply that Putin sees Lenin as competition. Putin obviously wants to create his own cult of personality, so he purges just like Stalin did.

Frankly, if Russia was at all serious about reform, the first thing it would do is change its national anthem. The song was written to glorify mass-murderer Josef Stalin, who killed more Russians than Hitler. To hear it playing at Torino was simply disgusting, clear and certain proof that Russia simply cannot, or even does not want to, make progress.

Yuri:

I share your sentiment on this one. If I'm not mistaken, VIL stressed that he didn't wish to be deified after his death.

When describing VIL, isn't "cunning bastard" a more approprate description than "crazy"?

Yes Mike, but Lenin killed a million people from 1919-1920, as the Black Book of Communism makes clear, Stalin just took the killing to another level, it was a difference of degree and not methods.

Lenin's corpse should be cremated, in my opinion.

Is that an actual photo of Lenin or a drawing? It was my understanding that it is illegal to photograph the body.

The scientific reason for keeping him around, above ground, is amusing and maybe worthwhile.

Do they charge a fee to see his corpse? That would seem sort of ironic, if they did. However, I guess that could be a good reason to not bury him. Exploitation of his corpse could provide a steady source of revenue for the Russian Federation. It they could develop a reality TV series around it, they could really make some money.

re: first posted comment

I love the current Russian national anthem. It's one of the best around.

Its original creation was to instill patriotism during WW II. Much better than the non-Russian sounding, non-Russian composed International (the first Soviet anthem), which in my opinion is an overly propagandistic piece of you know what.

As per the second Soviet anthem, the words glorifying Stalin were removed after the dictator's death.

Russia is making tremendous progress.

Let's say America had a national anthem with the words "Let's kill every stinking Russian in the world, they are an infestation!" which was written under the dictatorship of an American tyrant.

Then the tyrant was thrown out, and the anthem was thrown out, and then some years later a new leader was chosen in a democratic election and she returned the old anthem, but changed the words so Americans were singing about beautiful American landscapes.

I just wonder how Russians would feel about that?

Russia is indeed making tremendous progress: it's traveling at light speed toward becoming a Neo-Soviet Union or, in the words of Atlantic magazine, "Zaire with permafrost."

Only a benighted Russian could think the election of a proud KGB spy as president ten years after the collapse of the USSR to be progress.

Isn't the current German anthem from the Nazi period?

This is quite okay with Kim Zigfeld.

Go Mishka go!

Zhana, the current German national anthem was adopted in 1922, with the verses being changed like the Russian anthem over time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Lied_der_Deutschen

Where in the world does this psychotic propaganda come from? I never said or implied that the German national anthem was acceptable, and I don't see how German atrocities make up for Russians ones. I guess since the Germans built concentration camps for Jews, it's OK for Russia to do the same, right?

By the way, the current German national anthem was NOT written to glorify Hitler the way the USSR anthem was.

It's quite amazing how Russians still think that this kind of pathetically transparent propaganda will gain them something, instead of undertaking any real reform.

But I guess Russians are happy to compare themselves to Germans and copy them!

After all, Russia has many Nazi groups who have murdered several foreign students of the "wrong" skin color, doesn't it?

Charles, I think that Zhana was just trying to bust on Kim's anti-Russian bia.

To Jason Herr:

The admission is free to see the corps, and you can do it something like from 9 am till noon two days a week. There are no lines, and Americans are 95% of the crowd. The photo is real. I copied it from the Gazeta.Ru website.

Thanks for reading the RussiaBlog!

To write that "Americans are 95% of the crowd" visting the corpse of Lenin is totally irresponsible. I can't believe I even see this in print! You ought to have some rules about citing evidence to support wild-eyed statements like this unless you want to totally lose your credibility. I've seen Lenin's body several times and always surrounded by old-school communist types with very few foreign tourists. What's more, there are quite often long lines to access the corpse, even in cold temperatures. It's this kind of totally unsupported reckless attitude towards facts that got Russia into trouble in the first place.

Not as troubling as your hate inspired posts.

Michael and Kim,
You seem to have a battle waging between you, on a public site. What's the issue?

Tanya:

It's not much of a battle as Kim is getting trounced.

Solzhenitsyn has been living in Russia for years now.

Yuri & Charlie:

Upon his visit to Seattle, please try to make Russia Today News Director Anton Verstakov have his employer make me an offer that I can't refuse.

I should be hitting against big league pitching.

Mike appears more loveable than yourself.

Didn't someone at this Blog note that Solzhenitsyn has been living in Russia for years?

Nothing like reading Russia Blog after a few hours at sea.

If I ever have editorial influence over a media outlet, all can be sure that I will ask on the brightest Russia haters.

This would of course exclude Kim.

Nothing personal Kim, but I strive for perfection.

I hope that Mr. Verstakov enjoys his stay in America.

Aren't they bad enough?

Hey!

I just have a question: How come he doesn't rot?! Do they have him in some special oxygen-free tank or something?!

I think they should wait another 80 years or so and *then* decide whether to bury Lenin or not. There's no rush. A lot of things will be more clear then.

I haven't been up to anything today. I don't care. I've just been staying at home not getting anything done. Basically not much happening right now. Maybe tomorrow. I guess it doesn't bother me.

nooooooo! they can't do this! he was a great man, throwing his body in a ditch nd sprinkling some dirt on top is a total lack of respect! he did more for that country than any bloody capitolist could! All Power to the Soviets!!

I think the best idea is to bury him in the year 2017 exactly 100 years when the revolution happened.

If I'm not mistaken, the only part left of Lenin is his pinky finger. The rest of it is fake.

you guys have absolutley NOOOO lives!!!!!

I disagree with Putin completely. Lenin Should be kept the way he is. He was one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century; he overthrew an empire which had kept a stranglehold over its people for hundreds of years, for this I believe that he deserves to be revered.

The main reason that the Soviets kept Lenin in the first place was to remind the generations that followed of the might of the Soviet Union.

Burning Lenin’s body today would no doubt please some people who believe that the days of the cold war and the Soviet Union should be forgotten but is that really in the best interests of Europe and the world.

What if we forgot the lessons that we learned in WW2? What the holocaust went unnoticed by the world? Would we still be in the same way we where in the 40s? Ignorant of the fact that there are leaders in the world who believe that people should be split on the grounds of race or religion.

Lenin is there today to remind us of what we’ve done, of who we where, and who we will become.

To me it's just some kind of necrophile atraction...very disturbing.

the died people shaken

crazy Communist dictator? This 'Journalist' has just totally discredited themselves by adding this opinionated piece of trash at the end of the article. How can someone so obviously biased portray the REAL facts? As for progress in the 21st century, it will not happen if propaganda like this keeps getting published. Personally I'm glad Russia had a revolution, the bourgeois needed crushing, 90% of the population were living in poverty. And yes I know Lenin led his people into a year of crisis where many turned to canibalism through hunger. Crazy? I think not. Let's bury him though, it's what he wanted afterall.

Wow! Michael Averco thinks that Putin was ELECTED? lol.

And there are no words like "kill", or "stinking", or "American", anywhere in the Soviet national anthem

During my visit to moscow I)(june 2009) have visited Lenin Mousoleum twice. It is free and open daily (except mondays)from 10 am-1 pm. The queues are quite long and more than half cannot enter. I spent more than two hours each time to see him. All the people show tremendous respect for Lenin.Dont believe, what western media say, there are still millions who apreciate Lenin and his achievements.