Lenin's Mausoleum, also known as Lenin's Tomb, is a mausoleum located at Red Square in Moscow, Russia. It serves as the resting place of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, whose preserved body has been on public display since shortly after his death in 1924, with rare exceptions in wartime. From 1953 to 1961, it was named Lenin's and Stalin's Mausoleum. The outdoor tribune over the mausoleum's entrance was used by Soviet leaders to observe military parades. The structure, designed by Alexey Shchusev, incorporates some elements from ancient mausoleums such as the Step Pyramid, the Tomb of Cyrus the Great and, to some degree, the Temple of the Inscriptions.
History
Two days after Vladimir Lenin's death on 21 January 1924, architect Alexey Shchusev was tasked with building a structure suitable for viewing of the body by mourners. A wooden tomb, built in Red Square close to the Moscow Kremlin Wall, was ready on 27 January, the same day Lenin's coffin was placed inside. More than 100,000 Soviet citizens visited the tomb in the next six weeks. By the end of May, Shchusev had replaced the tomb with a larger, more elaborate mausoleum, and Lenin's body was transferred to a sarcophagus designed by architect Konstantin Melnikov. The new wooden mausoleum was opened to the public on 1 August 1924. Pathologist Alexei Ivanovich Abrikosov had embalmed Lenin's body shortly after his death, with Boris Zbarsky and Vladimir Vorobiev later being tasked with its ongoing preservation. Zbarsky was soon assisted by his son Ilya Zbarsky, a recent graduate of Moscow University, who likened the work on Lenin's body to that of ancient Egyptian priests. In 1925, Boris Zbarsky and Vorobiev urged the Soviet government to replace the wooden structure after mold was found in the walls and even on the body itself. A new mausoleum of marble, porphyry, granite, and labradorite, designed by Shchusev, was completed in 1930. The mausoleum also served as a viewing stand for Soviet leaders to review military parades on Red Square. Lenin's body has been on almost continuous public display inside the mausoleum since its completion in 1930. It was kept under a continuous ceremonial guard of KGB soldiers. In October 1941, during the Second World War, known in Russia as the Great Patriotic War, when it appeared that Moscow might be captured, the body was evacuated to Tyumen in Siberia. After the war, the body was returned, and the tomb was reopened. Between 1953 and 1961, the embalmed body of Joseph Stalin shared a spot next to Lenin's; Stalin's body was eventually removed as part of de-Stalinization and Khrushchev's Thaw, and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Soviet sculptor Nikolai Tomsky designed a new sarcophagus for Lenin's body in 1973. On 26 January 1924, the head of the Moscow Garrison issued an order to place the guard of honour, popularly known as the "Number One Sentry", at the mausoleum. The guard of honour was disbanded following the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, but was restored at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Alexander Garden four years later.
Architectural features
Project selection and construction
In January 1925, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee announced an international competition to design a stone tomb for Lenin's body. The commission received 117 suggestions and sketches. Among them, there were offered different variants: a ship with Lenin's figure on board, a round mausoleum in the shape of a globe, an analogue of an Egyptian pyramid and a mausoleum in the shape of the five-pointed star. But after considering the proposed designs, the commission decided to retain the image of a wooden mausoleum. Shchusev created some new drawings based on old sketches and made a model in granite, and his project was approved. It was decided to clad the new building with red granite, as well as black and grey labradorite. The basement under the sarcophagus weighed twenty tonnes. It was installed on a thick layer of sand, and guarding piles–meant to protect the tomb from vibration–were driven around the slab. Altogether 2900 m2 of polished granite was required for the construction, each square metre of which was processed for three days on average. The upper slab of red Karelian Shoksha quartzite was placed on columns of granite, whose different species were specially brought to Moscow from all the republics of the USSR. The stone mausoleum was completed October 1930, after sixteen months of construction. Compared to the previous wooden mausoleum, the new building was built three metres higher, the outer volume was increased 4.5 times – 5800 m³, and the inner volume 12 times, up to 2400 m³. Its total weight was about 10,000 tonnes. The mausoleum occupied the highest point on Red Square. During construction, both the mausoleum and the necropolis were brought to a unified architectural design: differently characterised tombstones and monuments were removed, individual and collective burials at Nikolskaya and Spasskaya Towers were united, and the fence was redesigned and installed. Guest stands for ten thousand seats that were installed on either side of the mausoleum.
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