Good Bye, Lenin? 40% of Russians want Soviet founding father to be removed from Red Square mausoleum & finally buried

A survey of Russians has revealed that two-fifths currently believe it is time for the body of Soviet revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin to be removed from display and put in the ground.

Research by online service Superjob revealed that just 22 percent of Russians think Lenin should stay where he is, with 17 percent believing the country should wait until those who were born and raised in the Soviet Union have passed away.

The status of Lenin's corpse is regularly discussed in Russian media, and is commonly brought up by political figures who wish to remove him from Red Square. In May, veteran politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky suggested that the country sell his body, perhaps to “China, Vietnam, or some other kind of communist.”

Earlier this week, Georgian-born American performance artist David Datuna announced on Instagram that he intends to buy Lenin's body and build a replica mausoleum in Washington, DC.

“Russia has long been an empire with its emperor. The US, meanwhile, is moving towards communism and socialist ideas,” Datuna wrote. “Today, the attributes of the mausoleum and Lenin are more needed by the United States than Russia.”  

On Monday, the mausoleum was the center of another controversy after the Russian Union of Architects announced a competition around the repurposing of the iconic building. Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov called the contest a “dirty provocation,” and it was later canceled.

Completed in 1930, Lenin's Mausoleum sits next to the Kremlin wall on Red Square, and is one of the country's most famous tourist attractions. Lenin, whose real name was Vladimir Ulyanov, was the founding father of the Soviet Union. Following his death in 1924, his body was embalmed to preserve it for public display.

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