REMARKABLE EMBALMING

Evening Star, Issue 22974, 3 June 1938, Page 1

REMARKABLE EMBALMING

Since its great founder Lenin died in 1924, the Soviet regime has changed beyond belief (writes 4. T. Cholertoa. in the ‘ Daily Telegraph and Morning Post,’ London). Except as an instrument of Soviet “ Power Policies, his International is non" dead or dying. And yet in his polychrome granite tomb in the Red Square, Moscow* Lenin’s mummy still “ lives ” and by living quickens Stalinism. In the last 13 years 11,500,000 pilgrims have been checked through tnals vault, and their number ever grows,Day in, day out, during the past si* months an average of 12,000 persons have queued for hours in all weathers to catch a glimpse of that tiny impressive body. The police run them through' fast, two abreast. _ Nobody spends more than 45seo walking round the glass-canopied bier. Under the grimly beautiful Kremlin wall, the squat, massive mausoleum, built of immense polished blocks of dull red granite and black and grey Labrador, dragged thousands of miles from the Urals and Karelia, speak* that language of State power which means so much to the Russian with hi* long history of semi-Asiatic despotism. Crossing a small garden, you pass between expressionless Red Guards* watching there night and day. Over the door the one word Lenin; facing you, inside, the arms of the Soviet Union finely carved in black and grey. The vault below, with its dark marble 1 walls inlaid with red flames, receives its light only from the shrine-like glass canopy. A polite guard points to lha steps up. and you find yourself suddenly quite close to and racing Lenin, The noble head is slightly raised on a' cushion, and the body is sloped a wav into the bier, covered at the lower end by the flag of the Paris Commune, almost black with age. He wears a plain khaki tunic with one order. Your first impression is how trail and tiny he is. Your second, how; quiet and .strong in, death. And yet* under the diffused flesh-coloured light* he does not seem altogether dead. Perhaps only dying or only just dead. As you pass rapidly along the raised platform, you next notice his firm elegant right hand,- diaphanous-looking but not shivelled or discoloured except for one finger nail blue at the root. This hand lies across his chest, the other along his left side, the common “ saintly ” position of the hands having been avoided. , „ Hurried along by the police officers* you manage to notice the fiirm, tuiijg sensual lips, still rather pursed, the wide sensitive nostrils —Tartar . blood, perhaps, but certainly passionate—the perfectly-shaped bald skull. You see the short, bleached hairs on the cheeks and above and behind the oars, and then realise that the flesh of the face and scalp are. not really dry at, aU, tnat somef-hing inside is' moistening them -e-jicr so sliiihtly; and.'then"-you imagine you see a faint sheen on them. The miracle was performed by Professor Vorobief, who died recently, and his assistant, Professor Sbarsky, who will carry on his work. It is a curiou* story. ■ Within 36 hours of his death, on January 21, 1924, at Gorki, a country house near Moscow, Lenin’s body was laid out in state in the Hall of White Columns of the former Moscow NoblesAssembly Rooms. Three days passed* and still the procession of mourners stretched- for miles. “ After all, could we not make a semi-permanent thing of it?” one Bolshevik leader asked; _ A meeting of specialists, hurriedly convoked, recommended Vorobief and Sbarsky, who knew all there was to know about embalming, ancient and modern. A week had already elapsed since death before the two professors could begin working. This complicated their task. But within six months Lenin’s body was on view again in fa temporary wooden tomb rather like the present permanent one. t “ Give us a free hand and follow-ouc instructions afterwards and we guarantee to preserve the appearance or the visible parts of the bdy unimpaired not only for the three months you ask, but perhaps for 100 years,” the two professors liad declared. ; After the opening ceremony they explained to a group of interested persons that their method depended for its suocess on: 1. Maintaining a- constant degree or sterilised moisture working thruogh the tissues from inside the body at a constant pressure, kept up by anelectrical pumping device connected up inside the body (their mixture contains water* glycerine, and potash). 2. Maintaining the temperature inside the glass canopy over the body at a constant 60deg F. or thereabouts —a variation of more than 2deg either way would ruin 1 everything. The professors admitted that owing to the delay in beginning the embalming process they had to sacrifice a large part of the body-. It is my private opinion that little remains below the thorax.