The discoveries made by the scientists of the Mausoleum laboratory help to save the sick around the world
The question of whether it is worth bury the body of the leader of the world proletariat has been a topic of heated debate for many years. Meanwhile, the Mausoleum on Red Square is still one of the main attractions of Moscow. Aleksey YURCHAK, an anthropologist and professor at the University of California at Berkeley, told Komsomolskaya Pravda about the discoveries made by scientists who have preserved the remains of Lenin for more than 90 years.
Is Ilyich real?
Alexey, what body is in the Mausoleum now? I had to hear that there, they say, a dummy …
- Already a few days after the Mausoleum opened for its first visitors in the summer of 1924, rumors spread in Moscow that it was not the real body of the leader, but his copy. Already in the post-Soviet years, Ilya Zbarsky, the son and one of the scientific successors of the first director of the laboratory under the Lenin Mausoleum, wrote: “All kinds of gossip and speculation that a wax doll is in the Mausoleum instead of Lenin or that only his face and hands have survived, in no way correspond to reality."
Zbarsky's statements, however, did not stop rumors, which are repeated today. For example, that there are several Leninist "doubles", which from time to time replace the real body. In 2000, the leading expert of the laboratory, Yuri Romakov, noted that Lenin's body was in excellent shape and did not need to be replaced. And in 2008, the State Duma deputy, and now the Minister of Culture, Vladimir Medinsky, said that Lenin's body could not be considered real, because ten percent remained of it.
So what's really there?
Promotional video:
- It all depends on what is considered real. During the autopsy and subsequent numerous embalms, the internal organs were removed from Lenin's body, and the internal fluids were replaced with embalming solutions. In response to Medinsky's statement, the journalists counted the number of replaced materials, concluding that, after all, not 10 percent, but 23 percent remained of the real body. But such calculations do not fully reflect the real picture. For specialists from the mausoleum laboratory, who have been engaged in body support for 92 years, it has always been important to preserve its external shape: physical appearance, weight, skin elasticity. At the same time, some of the biological materials that make up Lenin's body were gradually replaced by new, artificial ones. From the point of view of form, this is undoubtedly the real body of Lenin. But if we focus on the authenticity of biological materials, then we can say that it has been reconstructed to some extent.
Alexey Yurchak
Photo: YouTube
Regenerated eyelashes and nose
What do the laboratory staff themselves think?
- Academician Yuri Mikhailovich Lopukhin, who worked in this laboratory for many years, during our conversations often called Lenin's body a living sculpture. Over the years, the original biological composition of the body has changed so much that, in a sense, this object has acquired the features of a sculpture or an external representation of the body. However, at the same time, he still remains directly the body itself. Although the term "sculpture" in this phrase is also not quite suitable: sculpture is something static, solidified, and Lenin's body does not lose its flexibility and elasticity. To maintain an unchanged body shape, you need to not only know the basics of anatomy, you also need to have an artistic flair.
How does it manifest itself?
- For example, as a result of embalming the body, Lenin's eyes were without eyelashes. I had to find a solution to this problem, and the solution was artistic. And they also had to restore the shape of the nose, because it was exposed to severe frost, when in January 1924 workers carried Lenin's body in an open coffin from the Gorki estate to the railway station. Gradually, with the help of artificial materials and tissues, the shape of the nose was restored.
Much attention has always been paid to those parts that were covered by clothing. To maintain the required shape, biological materials were replaced, which was not a problem from the point of view of party commissions, who regularly check the state of the body.
Mausoleum in 1976
Photo: RIA Novosti
Cholesterol meter
Did the work on preserving Lenin's body help make scientific discoveries?
- Oh sure. In the mid-1960s, Yuri Lopukhin took part in the creation of the domestic method of kidney transplantation. In the mausoleum laboratory, he had to develop instruments for the process of tissue perfusion (the passage of blood or artificial solutions through tissues. - Ed.), And this development was useful for the perfusion of the kidneys.
Avoiding any cuts and tears in the skin is one of the requirements while preserving Lenin's body. Since the laboratory conducted regular testing of his condition, a method was required that would allow data to be obtained without making cuts. Laboratory staff came up with a non-invasive analysis method. Lopukhin and colleagues adapted it to measure cholesterol levels in living patients. In 2002, scientists received a patent. A small, portable cholesterol meter was developed and is now sold in Canada, the United States, and Europe. It is the only non-invasive method for measuring cholesterol levels in the skin.
REFERENCE
Alexey YURCHAK, anthropologist, professor at the University of California at Berkeley, winner of the 2015 Enlightener Prize for the book “It Was Forever Before It Was Over”, dedicated to the paradoxes of “late socialism”. Author of lectures, popularizer of science.
Marina KALASHNIKOVA