Lacking support, the idea was rejected. Putin's own reluctance to get involved in the fate of his predecessor could help preserve the mausoleum, says Angus Roxburgh, a former PR adviser for Putin's Kremlin and author of "Moscow Calling: Memoirs of a Foreign Correspondent. Putin has chosen instead to focus on indisputable national victories such as World War II -- or the Great Patriotic War, as it's known in Russia -- to bring Russians together.
Russian identity. They drape it or cover it with scaffolding. It's like an embarrassing relic. David Satter -- author of four books on Russia and a former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times -- says shifting Lenin may not be worth the political headache or cultural upheaval.
The pilgrimage to see Lenin has less of the theatrics than it had when the current mausoleum opened in , replacing the wooden structure that was hastily built to accommodate crowds of mourners. The Honor Guard that goose-stepped outside has been stripped from Lenin and moved to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, where visitors' attention is diverted away from the mausoleum for the hourly changing of the guard.
And the team of scientists that dote on the former revolutionary leader -- and also the corpse of Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh on display in Hanoi -- is much smaller than it once was. Yet even the brief minute or so that visitors are allotted with Lenin leaves a lasting impression. The experience offers a glimpse of Soviet culture and what it held sacred, and of a once integral aspect of Russian identity that may be slipping away with each new generation.
A year of the world's Best Beaches There's a perfect beach for every week of the year. Join us on a month journey to see them all Go to the best beaches. But the cold winter kept Lenin's publicly displayed corpse in fair condition for almost two months as huge crowds waited to pay their respects.
That also gave the leaders time to reconsider the idea of preserving the body for a longer period. To avoid any association of Lenin's remains with religious relics, they publicized the fact that Soviet science and researchers were responsible for preserving and maintaining it. The leaders eventually agreed to try an experimental embalming technique developed by anatomist Vladimir Vorobiev and biochemist Boris Zbarsky. The first embalming experiment lasted from late March to late July in Such an effort was complicated by the fact that the physician who carried out Lenin's autopsy had already cut the body's major arteries and other blood vessels.
An intact circulatory system could have helped deliver embalming fluids throughout the body. Lenin Lab researchers eventually developed microinjection techniques that used single needles to deliver embalming fluids to certain bodily parts, preferentially places where cuts or scars from past treatments already existed, Yurchak says.
They also created a double-layered rubber suit to keep a thin layer of embalming fluid covering Lenin's body during public display; a regular suit of clothes fits over the rubber suit.
The body gets reembalmed once every other year; a process that involves submerging the body in separate solutions of glycerol solution baths, formaldehyde, potassium acetate, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid solution and acetic sodium. Each session takes about one and a half months. Such painstaking maintenance goes above and beyond common embalming methods used to preserve bodies for funerals and medical education. Bodies embalmed in this way have a shelf life of tens of years.
Both conventional embalmers and the Lenin Lab face several common challenges, Black explains. Bodies must be kept from drying out so that they don't mummify. Heavy use of formalin can also turn human tissue the color of "canned tuna fish," which is why funeral embalmers use colorants in their embalming fluids to make the recently deceased look a healthy pink.
Funeral embalmers also apply cosmetics for temporary funeral displays prior to burial. But bodies preserved in formalin become discolored, stiff and fragile over the long run. A modern alternative called the Thiel soft-fix method combines a different mix of liquids—including nitrate salts—to maintain the natural color, feel and flexibility of the tissues.
Such a method is useful for medical education and training. Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. Roaring Twenties. Westward Expansion. Art, Literature, and Film History. Sign Up. American Revolution.
0コメント