Vladimir Lenin

PRISONER OF THE MAUSOLEUM. BEYOND DEATH

On January twenty-first, 2023, exactly 99 years have passed since the death of Vladimir Lenin. Few people have influenced civilization as much as Lenin. He became a paladin of freedom, equality and brotherhood for millions of people. These values were fought for during the Great French Revolution. It was October for them.

Any action inevitably has consequences. If you believe the passionate theory of ethnogenesis expressed by Gumilev, strange people come to the world at the turn of the epochs. Outwardly, they are the same as you and me: they breathe air, eat food, get tired and get sick. The difference lies in the subtle and possibly esoteric matter called "psyche". A passionary is a maniac of his business. He believes in an idea that will never give him peace. The idea pushes the passionarian forward, sweeping away uncertainty and doubts. Hence the fierce motivation grows. If you add a little luck to this, then new empires are emerging on the planet. Such was Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Such was Ilyich.

Unfortunately, human life is a fleeting phenomenon. To achieve something, a person must go through a long and painful path of becoming. The period of effective life, when we are really able to influence the world, is measured by a maximum of a couple of decades. No one has ever managed to escape death. Passionaries burn brightly, but quickly. When a natural leader dies, the warrior king is replaced by functionaries, politicians and other opportunists.

The young USSR was in difficult conditions. The Russian Empire, which has existed for almost 200 years, has become a real Atlantis — just as romantically lost. The state that was born on its ashes was something fundamentally different. There was nothing like this before or after. The Soviet Union needed its symbols, mythology and faith.

The philosophy of Marxism-Leninism denies the irrational. Nevertheless, the life of Soviet citizens was imbued with deep mysticism. Of course, there is no magic or influence of otherworldly forces here. Nevertheless, the archetypal symbols of communism influence people, at least because of their ideological charge.

There is nothing in the world stronger than death. It is a constant in three-dimensional space. With this, the biological existence of a person ends, but his affairs continue to diverge in space-time, like waves from a thrown stone. They say that the spell ends with the death of the sorcerer. But a clever sorcerer can hide his death for a long time.

The heart of the Soviet Union was beating in Moscow. When Ilyich died, many people wanted to say goodbye to him. In any case, the leader has done a lot of good for his comrades.

The rituals of farewell required time, and there was always not enough of it. A living organism exists in a dynamic balance between renewal and degradation. Death from the point of view of biochemistry is a violation of natural meta**bolic processes.

Having lost blood supply, the cells switch to an oxygen-free cycle. A certain amount of energy can be squeezed out of cellular reserves. Together with it, a lot of chemical debris is formed, such as lactic acid and free radicals. Aggressive molecules are used to destroy membranes. When the membrane bursts, lytic enzymes exit the vacuoles.

Trillions of microorganisms swarm in the stomach of each of us. The pressure of the immune system stops. For bacteria, a celebration of life is coming. They contribute to the self-digestion of the corpse. Such a fate awaited ordinary mortals, but not Lenin.

Alexey Abrikosov, a Soviet academician, poured 6 liters of alcohol, formaldehyde and glycerin into Lenin's aorta. The preservative solution briefly suppressed the decay reaction. During a slow autopsy, the brain and part of the internal organs were extracted from the body.

The brain produces what we call personality. Neurologist Oskar Vogt came from Germany to examine the remains of the leader. He wanted to answer the question, what is the reason for Lenin's genius. The organ was thoroughly crushed on a microtome, receiving 30,000 slices. That's how the USSR Brain Institute was born.

The technologies of that time made it possible to see a single neuron or describe the relative location of the convolutions. Good, but bad. Judging a person by a histological preparation is like guessing about a computer program while twirling a motherboard in your hands.

Abrikosov's technique worked for 6 days. And the flow of Lenin's fans did not even think to end. Nadezhda Krupskaya wanted to bury the body, but after much debate agreed to wait another month.

Molotov and Dzerzhinsky strongly opposed the funeral. Comrade Stalin put the final end to the dispute.

"This issue, as I have learned, is also very worrying for some of our comrades in the provinces," Stalin announced. — We need to embalm Lenin's body. There are new methods in this regard, thus preserving Lenin for many years to come. This does not contradict the Old Russian customs. Place him in a specially equipped crypt"

Not a crypt, but a Mausoleum! A tomb grew up in Moscow, which was a little more modest than the tombs of the pharaoh. The stepped ziggurat evoked obsessive associations with something Sumerian. The form itself is not as important as the content. On the other hand, the correct arrangement of geometric lines acts on the level of psychology. If the ziggurats didn't work, no one would have erected them.

Everything is afraid of time, and time is afraid of pyramids. Lenin is inseparable from the revolution, and at the same time his face was covered with corpse stains. Something had to be done about it.

Freezing? A simple answer, and therefore wrong. The refrigerators did not have time to arrive from Germany. Then biochemist Boris Zbarsky came to Felix Edmundovich. He said that his colleague Vladimir Vorobyov knows how to preserve the body for any length of time.

Naturally, the offer was accepted.

First, the liver, spleen and lungs were removed from the body, which became foci of infection. Many incisions were made on the back, arms, legs and stomach. The corpse was placed in a bath filled with an aqueous solution of glycerin, potassium acetate and chloroquine. On July 26, 1924, the experiment was deemed successful.

The conservation technology was dynamic. Every year and a half, Ilyich goes to necroalchemistry procedures. It is washed, soaked with a solution, and sometimes patched with skin fragments.

Scientists maintain Lenin's blush with the help of chemical reagents and correctly positioned lamps. His eyes have long been replaced by glass. Surgeons stitched the lips, hiding the thread under the mustache. Eyelids, nose and ears are artificial implants.

At the moment, Lenin still has his own skin, joints and internal tissues. He looks like he's lying down to rest. A careless sound — and Vladimir Ilyich will wake up from an age-old dream. The leader's eyes will light up with a red flame, he will jump on an armored car and again address the proletarians with a speech. Then the guns of the Aurora will speak, launching the history of the planet into a new round.

This is evidenced by the human craving for the irrational. There is one paradox expressed by the ancient Greeks. Let's say Theseus sailed the seas for a long time. His ship was regularly repaired. The team was updated periodically. If you replace every detail on the ship and put another team on the oars, will it be the same machine?

Is the one who lies in the Mausoleum still Lenin? Will he remain an ilch in tens or even hundreds of years?

Yuri Lopukhin, who worked for a long time in the Mausoleum group, is ready to answer this question.

Cells in a living person, according to Lopukhin, are constantly changing to new ones. Within 10-15 years, most of our cells are replaced. At the same time, we naturally remain the same people. So Lenin's body is changing, being renewed and still "living".

He lives in a strange afterlife, a dream lasting hundreds of generations.