Photo: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870 – 1924) lying in state in the Kremlin. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). 1924
Important! For the same article in Russian language click here.
Something quite intriguing is happening within Russian-speaking internet during the last few – should you type a fully academic inquiry (at least, according to Russian academic requirements) in national search engines for "Lenin's mausoleum" – the first thing you get (even in top 10 searches) is website pages talking about black magic and occult. Website authors view this construction differently, but unconditionally agree on one thing: the mausoleum of the "leader of the world proletariat” – the essence of a magical artifact, a sort of “energy vampire”. It was built with a certain purpose: to drain the energy out of miserable Soviet citizens on one hand; and to poison the anthroposphere of one-sixth part of the earth with its vibes (the exact territory that was occupied by the former Soviet Union), depriving the Russian people of will to resist on the other hand. Complete nonsense? No doubt. Nevertheless, an intriguing one. Well, probably because some oddities do exist in mausoleum's history. These oddities are the thing we are going to discuss this time. First, let me refresh you memory on the subject.
Russian soldiers from 34th motorized infantry mountain brigade, 58th Army, prepare to evacuate a fellow soldier acting as an injured person during a drill at the Darial range outside Russia's city of Vladikavkaz, July 28, 2010. (Photo by Kazbek Basayev/Reuters)
Smoke rises from a house days after part of the ground it was resting on collapsed into Lake Whitney, Texas in this June 13, 2014 file photo. I was covering the controlled burn of a house slowly falling into Lake Whitney due to the decaying cliff underneath. Asked to take photos from an aerial perspective, an instructor and I took off from Grand Prairie Municipal Airport around 9am. The burn, scheduled to start an hour later, was delayed. I love flying, but patience proved challenging as circling for nearly three hours gets boring fast. Once the fire started we only had 15 minutes to take photos because the plane was booked at 1pm. The owners invested their retirement savings in the house and were even advised by geologists that the ground was stable. To watch your investment literally go up in flames must take its toll emotionally. The owners said they don't expect their insurance to cover the loss. (Photo and caption by Brandon Wade/Reuters)
North Korean children wave to people on a Chinese tourist boat on the banks of Yalu River near the Chongsong county of North Korea, opposite the Chinese border city of Dandong, May 8, 2011. (Photo by Jacky Chen/Reuters)
A police officer sprinkles colored powder onto a police dog at Nepal's Central Police Dog Training School during a dog worship day as part of the Diwali festival, also known as Tihar Festival, in Kathmandu, Nepal, 10 November 2015. The Tihar festival is the second major festival for Nepalese Hindus and this year is held from 10 November 2015. (Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EPA)
Alexo Carmona, 2, looks at Coco, a two-year-old pony, in downtown Havana, in this March 6, 2015 file photo. Nearly a quarter of a million people follow the Reuters Instagram account – and it's still growing fast. To mark the mid-point of 2015, Reuters has compiled the twenty most-liked pictures so far. This picture was 20th most popular. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)