Moscow: Russia`s ruling party has launched a
website announcing an online poll on the burial of
revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin amid demands that his
mummified body, which has been kept at his tomb on the
historic Red Square since his death in 1924, be removed from
there.
The poll of the `goodbyelenin.ru` website of the United
Russia party has only one question "Do you back the idea of
burying the body of Vladimir Lenin?" The question requires a
"Yes" or "No" as answer, `Ria Novosti` reported.
It said that a total of 288 people had cast their vote so
far. Out of them, 74 per cent supported the proposal of
burying Lenin and 26 per cent were against it.
Lenin, the founder of the erstwhile Soviet Union, died on
January 21, 1924 and his body was embalmed and placed in a
specially-built mausoleum on Moscow`s Red Square. The body is
kept in a glass casket for public viewing.
However, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in
1991, there had been demands that his body be removed from the
red granite tomb on Red Square.
A prominent Russian lawmaker recently dubbed Lenin as a
an "extremely controversial political figure."
"Lenin is an extremely controversial political figure and
his presence in the necropolis in the heart of our country is
extremely silly," Vladimir Medinsky, a State Duma Member from
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin-led United Russia party was
quoted as saying by the Interfax.
Lenin had led the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and
set up the world`s `first state of workers and farmers`.
"We have something stupid, pagan, corpse-worshipper`s
mission on the Red Square. There is nothing left of Lenin`s
body, specialists know that only 10 per cent of the body is
left, rest has been ... substituted," Medinsky said pressing
for the removal of the embalmed body of the leader from the
mausoleum on Red Square.
The issue of removing body of the Bolshevik leader from
near the Kremlin wall has split the society.
Former Russian Patriarch Alexi-II had demanded a fitting
`Christian` burial for Lenin by the side of his mother in St
Petersburg as per the last wish of the Soviet leader.
PTI
