A dead body in the Kremlin and a Railway Engine No. 293
Engine No.293, which carried him back to Russia, is displayed in St. Petersburg.
Engine No.293, which carried him back to Russia, is displayed in St. Petersburg.
Engine No.293, which carried him back to Russia, is displayed in St. Petersburg.
The oldest tenant of the Kremlin, Moscow, is a dead body. When it was alive, it belonged to a person called Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov, better known as Vladimir Lenin. The railway engine No.293 sits in St. Petersburg, 707 kilometres away. Lenin’s embalmed body has been on show in the Kremlin since January 27, 1924. The engine came to rest in St. Petersburg in 1957, when the Finnish State Railways gifted it to the Soviet Union. What connects the two is a fascinating piece of history. First, about the body.
I wonder if Lenin ever imagined that the body he carried around would one day become Kremlin’s biggest tourist attraction. (Be ready to wait up to 1.5 hours to see it.) It’s a curious human trait that we like to look at preserved bodies. Perhaps one reason is that most of them belong to people who changed history for good or bad. Or to ‘saints’. I went to see Lenin’s body because the blood-splattered history he created was vivid in my mind. Thus it was that one day I found myself standing in a long queue opposite the Lenin Mausoleum at Red Square. It was windy and cold.
There is heavy security at the mausoleum, and there are strict prohibitions. Photography is banned. No mobile phones and bags. Men must remove their caps/hats before entering. Talking and laughing are a no-no. Even putting your hands in your pockets is banned. Nor can you stop, pause or even linger but must keep moving in line once you’re inside. All this reminds you of regulations enforced in ‘holy’ places. But here you’re waiting to see the body of a man who rejected religion and God altogether.
But dead bodies have utility in politics and religion beyond your or my imagination. Stalin’s body used to give company to Lenin’s for about eight years from 1953 to 1961. But Party Secretary and Premier Nikita Krushchev, as part of his de-Stalinization campaign, removed it and gave it a proper burial in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis. Stalin must’ve, if it was possible, breathed a sigh of relief. Because it takes a lot of trouble to carry on as a dead body that’s under public scrutiny every day, looking fresh and neat – if not cheerful.
When Lenin’s body was first embalmed in 1924 immediately after his death, Russian experts used a special process which was different from the traditional formaldehyde method, details of which are still a state secret. It is known that the brain was removed for scientific study. Most other important organs stayed in place. A complex and intense chemical treatment of the body followed. It seems Russia has allowed access to this technology only to a select few Communist countries. Thus, we have the everlasting bodies of Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam and Kim Il Sung of North Korea, among others.
Keeping Lenin’s body in good order is a huge task, time-consuming and expensive. According to embalming specialists, the annual cost of the scientific preservation of Lenin’s body is around $240,000 – $ 280,000, roughly Rs.2.31 crore - ₹2.69 crore. This is apart from the operating costs of the mausoleum itself, which are said to be several times the cost of body preservation. But that’s chicken feed considering the income from tourism: about 2 million people visit the Kremlin annually, and the primary ticket fare is US $16; the ticket for the Armoury Chamber costs another US $17.00. That’s around US $66 million annually; roughly ₹635 crores. Is it any wonder that viewing Lenin is free, even though it is one of the main attractions!
Interesting details are available on how Lenin’s body has been kept going for 101 years. There’s a daily inspection for dust and environmental control. Every 16-18 months the body is lowered from the display hall by lift to an underground conservation laboratory staffed by specialists in anatomy, chemistry and conservation. The repair and conservation process takes six to eight weeks, and consequently there is no public display during this period.
The body, according to reliable sources, (hope this doesn’t sound too gruesome) is immersed in a special embalming solution to rehydrate tissues; examined for any signs of decay; treated to maintain skin texture and flexibility; and cosmetics attended to. The clothing is also cleaned or replaced as needed. Apparently, life as a dead body is way tougher than it is as a living body!
It is an achievement of science that a substantial part of Lenin’s body that we see today is the original body. The preservation of Lenin’s body is considered one of the world’s most advanced examples of long-term body preservation. However, one would think that the worst fate to befall a revolutionary leader who changed history – creating rivers of innocent blood - is to become an expensive mummy on display.
Railway engine No. 293 sits in a glass enclosure inside the Finland station in St. Petersburg. The engine played a part in the remarkable series of events that changed the course of Russian - and world – history forever. The Finland station is so named because it was built by Finnish railways in the late 1800s to connect Riihimaki in Finland to the Russian capital. The old Finland station, a small building made of wood and brick, is gone and, in its place, stands a massive soviet style structure which serves as the domestic terminal.
It was to that old wood-and-brick building that engine No. 293 steamed in from Switzerland on April 16, 1917, carrying from exile Lenin and his entourage of revolutionaries. The February Revolution of 1917 had already taken place, Tsar Nicholas had been dethroned, and a provisional government was in power. Lenin opposed the provisional government and as a result was forced to flee Russia again, this time to Finland.
From Finland he made a return to St. Petersburg in August 1917 disguised as a train fireman. He rode in the cab of the same engine No.293, shovelling coal into the furnace. Thus, a small steam engine had found its place in history. So had the Finnish engine driver Hugo Salava, who drove the train both times. Of course, neither knew they were making history. I doubt if Lenin did too. The October Revolution followed, and Lenin became supreme leader of the world’s largest contiguous political empire, spanning 22.8 million kilometres across Europe and Asia. American scholar Edmund Wilson’s celebrated work on the history of revolutions is called To the Finland Station. A gripping book that devotes itself to Lenin’s fateful train journey to St. Petersburg in 1917 is Catherine Merridale’s Lenin on the Train.
Unfortunately, as readers of history know, Lenin was a ruthless leader. Surviving telegrams and directives from early Soviet days when Lenin was consolidating his power show that he had given daily targets for the execution of ‘’class enemies’’ even to far-flung party units and demanded strict compliance. Thousands of Russians perished in prisons, labour camps and mass murders. During the notorious Red Terror period (1918-1922), Lenin’s secret police, the Cheka, alone is known to have eliminated at least 50,000 people. Available historical evidence points to the fact that Czar Nicholas II and family were brutally murdered in Ekaterinburg, Siberia, with Lenin’s direct knowledge. The man who lies in state in the Kremlin mausoleum carries on his hands the blood of a few hundred thousand Russians, some of whom were themselves revolutionaries.
I prefer the humble engine No. 293.