Koen
Google
Ever since the first temporary wooden mausoleum was erected in 1924, people have lined up to see (and honor?) the embalmed body of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Two months later, the temporary mausoleum was replaced by a permanent, also wooden, stepped pyramid building, 18 meters long and wide and 9 meters high. Construction of a slightly larger (24 meters long and wide and 12 meters high) stone mausoleum began in July 1929, and was completed in October 1930. Stalin's embalmed body was interred there in 1953, but after de-Stalinization under Khrushchev, his body was removed from the mausoleum in 1961 and buried near the Kremlin wall. From the roof of the building, the Soviet leaders watched the military parades every year. Visitors enter through the main entrance, descend to the left into the memorial hall, and then walk past the sarcophagus with Lenin. Communist or not, a visit to the Lenin Mausoleum is a must!