On the morning of the February 18th, 2025, a foreign tourist wearing a scarf walks past a store window with spring clothes hanging on the street in Myeongdong, Seoul. (Photo by Park Seong-won)

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.

The Grand Canyon Skywalk is a transparent horseshoe-shaped cantilever bridge and tourist attraction in Arizona near the Colorado River on the edge of a side canyon in the Grand Canyon West area of the main canyon. USGS topographic maps show the elevation at the Skywalk's location as 4,770 ft (1,450 m) and the elevation of the Colorado River in the base of the canyon as 1,160 ft (350 m), and they show that the height of the precisely vertical drop directly under the skywalk is between 500 ft (150 m) and 800 ft (240 m).

An Indonesian student protester runs after he caught fire while throwing a molotov cocktail towards police during a protest against the new president's decision to hike fuel prices this week in Makassar, South Sulawesi Province November 19, 2014. (Photo by Yusuf Ahmad/Reuters)

A member of the “Avocadoo” club performs a pole dance on a street sign pole in Lodz, central Poland on June 27, 2013. Talk about a traffic stopper: three pole dancers in central Poland have been honing their skills out in the streets, throwing their legs around signposts to the surprise and delight of many a passerby. (Photo by Janek Skarzynski/AFP Photo)

Zarnala is a female illustrator with a knack for anthropomorphic illustration, combining human and animal elements to create something altogether new. Unlike other forms of anthropomorphic art one can find out there though, her work always retains a tasteful, professional edge similar to the feel I get from comics like Juanjo Garnido's take on Blacksad. With an awesome watercolor themed approach to all her illustration work and her use of graphic shapes to frame her characters, at times it gives her art a strangely retro look that reminds one of the works of Norman Rockwell and JC Leyendecker. Check out more of her work after the break!

A devotee of the Chinese Ban Tha Rue shrine walks with guns pierced through his cheeks during a procession celebrating the annual vegetarian festival in Phuket, Thailand, October 17, 2015. The festival, featuring face-piercing, spirit mediums and strict vegetarianism celebrates the local Chinese community's belief that abstinence from meat and various stimulants during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar will help them obtain good health and peace of mind. (Photo by Jorge Silva/Reuters)

Haitians dressed in costumes dance during the Haitian National Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti, 19 February 2017. Locals and foreigners gathered to enjoy the colorful carnival in which parades are full of art, music and dance. (Photo by Bahare Khodabande/EPA)