Lenin museum. Mourning Hall
Vladimir llyich Lenin died January 21, 1924 at 6:50 p. m. The next day an address by an extraordinary Plenary Session of the R.C.P.(B) Central Committee was published. "To the Party. To all working people." An excerpt from the address is inscribed on the right wall in a special setting: "All that is indeed great and heroic in the proletariat-the fearless mind, the iron, inflexible, persistent will that overcomes all obstacles, the sacred hate, the hate for slavery and oppression till death, the revolutionary fervor which can move mountains, the boundless faith in the creative forces of the masses, the vast organisational genius—all this found its personification in Lenin, whose name became the symbol for the new world from the East to the West, from the North to the South.. .." V. I. Lenin's death mask and the moulds of his hands, made by the sculptor S.Merkurov, are displayed in the centre of the hall. The mourning banners and wreaths are also kept here. Huge photographs along the walls to the right and to the left, which are imitations of the Kremlin walls, tell of the farewell to V.I.Lenin. Under the photographs along the lower part of the walls are display cases containing applications for membership in the Communist Party (over 240 thousand workers became Communists during these sorrowful days), letters and telegrams expressing condolences over V.I.Lenin's death that arrived from many countries throughout the world, newspaper editions with black-bordered obituary announcements, photographs and models of the mausoleums, the temporary one and the permanent, the latter people have been visiting for half a century already. Red Square. Soon it will be 11:00 a.m. The entrance to the Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin will soon open. The sun floods the square with bright light and caresses the black-red stone of the Mausoleum, plays on the bayonets of the sentries at a standstill at their posts at the entrance to the Mausoleum, illuminates the silver f1r trees, and guilds the ruby facets of the stars on the Kremlin towers. The last seconds. Marching in ceremonial stride, the sentries change. The ringing of the chimes resounds over the square. The doors of the Mausoleum open wide. People enter and descend to the funeral hall. The silence is disturbed only by the shuffle of feet. Lenin lies in the centre of the hall in the sarcophagus. Each visitor sees Lenin for 80 seconds. And he remembers these 80 seconds for the rest of his life. 
Lenin's funeral. Moscow, January 1924.The Great Ideological Legacy |
