“Eye of the Tower” by Mehmet Yasa; Verona, Italy. “The staircase and the bell looks like an eye. Architecture can fascinate us in many ways”. (Photo by Mehmet Yasa/Art of Building Photography Awards 2017)

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.

Magbola Alhadi, 20, and her three children pose for a portrait in Jamam refugee camp in Maban County, South Sudan on August 11th, 2012. Magboola and her family weathered aerial bombing raids for several months, but decided it was time to leave their village of Bofe the night that soldiers arrived and opened fire. With her three children, she travelled for 12 days from Bofe to the town of El Fudj, on the South Sudanese border. The most important thing that Magboola was able to bring with her is the saucepan she holds in this photograph. It wasn't the largest pot that she had in Bofe, but it was small enough she could travel with it, yet big enough to cook sorghum for herself and her three daughters (from left: Aduna Omar, 6, Halima Omar, 4, and Arfa Omar, 2) during their journey. (Photo by Brian Sokol/Panos Pictures)

A pink elephant balloon, one of the entries in the Canadian Hot Air Balloon Championships, lands in a field in High River September 27, 2013. The event is a qualifier for the World Hot Air Balloon Championships in Sao Paulo in 2014. (Photo by Mike Sturk/Reuters)

“Keep On Trucking, Mr. Lynx!”. Canadian Lynx Study. (Photo by Josef)

Members of the Guard of Honor of the Presidential Regiment from Russia perform during the “Spasskaya Tower” international military music festival at Moscow's Red Square, Russia, September 10, 2015. The festival runs until 13 Sepember. (Photo by Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)

“Woman with Umbrella in Rain” by Raimund von Stillfried. Artist: Kusakabe Kimbei (Japanese, 1841–1934), 1870s. Commercial photography studios in Meiji-era Japan were renowned for the subtlety and refinement of their coloring techniques. This hand-tinted image of a young woman caught in a heavy rainstorm achieved its naturalistic effect by knitting together multiple strands of artifice: the greenery in the foreground was a studio prop; the flaps of the kimono were suspended by thin wires to create the impression of a strong wind; and long, diagonal marks were made on the negative to suggest streaks of rain. (Photo courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art)

A Russian prisoner eating bread. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images). Finland, circa 1940