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Who's Embalmed in Lenin's Tomb?
If Abraham Lincoln or, say, Ronald Reagan had been embalmed and was available for viewing, would Americans flock to his bedside? Would he become a tourist attraction? Four and a half little circles on Trip Advisor? The Russians, perhaps taking a page out of ancient Egypt's Book of the Dead, preserved Vladimir Lenin's body when he died in 1924. Originally, they did it to keep him looking spiffy for the crowds that filed past him in the days immediately after his death. But then the real work began. Scientists got to work on a chemical mixture just for him, and a string of specialists, at one time numbering around 200, has been keeping him in shape ever since. As you may imagine, such expertise doesn't come cheap, even in Russia, and when the Soviet Union fell, there was a moment there when it seemed the top comrade might take his place alongside the country's lesser luminaries: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/09/lenin-lab-team-keeping-first-soviet-leader-embalmed-moscow
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