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.

Labourers unload gravel from a boat docked in Dala township, opposite Yangon city, Myanmar, November 12, 2015. (Photo by Olivia Harris/Reuters)

People look on as search and rescue operations continue in the aftermath of a strong earthquake, in Mandalay, Myanmar, on March 31, 2025. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Barcelona-based visual effects/3D animation company Big Lazy Robot brings us a beautiful animated video that uses an alternate robotic world to satirize our dependence on technology.

In this photo provided by the Karenni Nationalities Defense Force (KNDF), smokes and flames billow from vehicles in Hpruso township, Kayah state, Myanmar, Friday, December 24, 2021. Myanmar government troops rounded up villagers, some believed to be women and children, fatally shot more than 30 and set the bodies on fire, a witness and other reports said Saturday. (Photo by KNDF via AP Photo)

A Burmese monk feeds the seagulls at a Yangon river jetty February 8, 2012 in Yangon, Myanmar. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

Born with a rare condition, the artist has chronicled her life in portraits – capturing everything from her tattooed prosthetics to the tentacled creature she stitched together on the shores of Naoshima. Here: Ophelia (2013). From a series of photos of imagined women exhibited at the 2013 Aichi Triennale. Here, Katayama invokes Hamlet’s tragic heroine, after the painting by British pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais. (Photo by Mari Katayama/The Guardian)