Jean-François Leroy launched Visa Pour l’Image, the international photojournalism festival, in Perpignan in 1989. Before heading up the festival, Leroy was shooting reportage for the agency Sipa Press and also working for Photo-Reporter, Le Photographe, Photo-Revue and Photo Magazine. He is the chairman of the company Images Evidence. Photo: 2008 Visa d'or Feature: Brent Stirton. Conservation Rangers from an Anti-Poaching unit work with locals to evacuate the bodies of four Mountain Gorrillas killed in mysterious circumstances in the park, July 24, 2007, Virunga National Park, Eastern Congo. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Exclusive by Getty Images)

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.

If you're not familiar with Terry's work, he takes boring, everyday objects and makes them come alive! The best thing about it is that it can be enjoyed by everyone. Young or old, we can all get a good chuckle out of his hilarious Bent Objects.

“After an afternoon of hiking and exploring the caves of Rhossili Bay, West Glamorgan, we caught the sun breaking through the clouds”. (Photo by Megan Warren-Davis/The Guardian)

A twelve foot long giant hamster has surprised Londoners along the South Bank, Millennium Bridge and Clapham Common on May 26, 2016. A 4-metre pedal-powered mechanical model hamster, which has been created in the likeness of Jaffa the hamster, who is listed as one of the 10 oddest discoveries made by Kwik Fit technicians in customers’ cars. (Photo by Joe Pepler/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A wrestling camel adorned with colourful ornaments takes part in the Camel Beauty Contest ahead of the annual 40th Efes Selcuk Camel Wrestling Festival, in the Aegean town of Selcuk, near Izmir, Turkey on January 15, 2022. (Photo by Murad Sezer/Reuters)

Member of the Imperio da Tijuca Samba School during the 2019 Carnival Series A parade in the Marques do Sapucaí Sambadrome in the city of Rio de Janeiro this Sunday, March 3, 2019. (Photo by William Volcov/Brazil Photo Press)

A pilgrim enters the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe on their hands and knees to honour the Virgin Mary in Mexico City, Mexico on December 11, 2022. (Photo by Jorge Nunez/Zuma Press Wire/Rex Features/Shutterstock)