Travel Notes

The question of moving Lenin’s body from its mausoleum on Red Square arose again this year, after lying dormant for several years. This time, however, it was the ruling United Russia party that pushed the idea, going so far as to construct the website goodbyelenin.ru in order to poll whether Russians think it’s time to lay Vladimir Ilyich to rest in a cemetery.

The debate was set in motion by United Russia deputy Vladimir Medinsky, who said, in an interview (and reproduced on the polling site): “I believe that every year we should raise the question of removal of Lenin’s remains from the mausoleum. It is obvious that Lenin himself did not plan to build himself any kind of mausoleum,* and his living relatives [at the time] – his sister and brother, were categorically against it. They wanted to bury him in St. Petersburg, along with his mother. But the Communists simply spat on this wish, on the leader himself, and on his relatives.”

At press time, according to the site, out of over 300,000 respondents, 68 percent feel that Lenin should be buried.