Vladimir Lenin's body lies in a sarcophagus in the Red Square mausoleum in Moscow on October 26, 1993
The founding father of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin had hoped to be buried alongside his mother in St. Petersburg. But the Soviet leadership ignored Lenin’s wishes, instead placing him on permanent display in a black granite mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square. The debate over whether to give him a proper burial crops up every year around January 21, the anniversary of his death. In 2011, Vladimir Medinsky—a member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party—launched the goodbyelenin.ru online poll. Nearly 70% of voters said they wanted to see the body moved six feet under. “Lenin is a very controversial figure and his role as the focus of a necropolis at the heart of our country is absurd,” Medinsky said. “[The communists] wanted to create a substitute religion based on Lenin’s cult, but they failed. It’s time to finish with this.”