Pyongyang. Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il

On January 27, 1924, the coffin with the body of Lenin was placed in a wooden mausoleum built in a matter of days on Red Square. The decision not to bury the body was not unprecedented: earlier cases of embalming are known. But not for individuals of this magnitude. However, the example of the leader of the world proletariat proved to be contagious. Over the next half century, the bodies of many political figures were mummified.

1. Joseph Stalin

Lenin's successor died on March 5, 1953, and four days later the coffin was transported on a gun carriage from the House of the Unions to Red Square. At noon, an artillery salute thundered over the Kremlin, the whole country fell silent for five minutes. Stalin's body lay in the mausoleum until 1961, until the XXII Congress of the CPSU decided that "Stalin's serious violations of Lenin's precepts, abuse of power, mass repressions against honest Soviet people and other actions during the period of the cult of personality make it impossible to leave the coffin with his body in the Mausoleum of V.I. Lenin. A day later, Stalin was buried near the Kremlin wall.

2. Mao Zedong

The tomb of the longtime leader of the Chinese People's Republic- one of the main attractions of Beijing. The mausoleum was erected on Tiananmen Square in 1977. The building area is more than 57 thousand square meters. In addition to the hall for visitors, where a crystal coffin with the mummified corpse of Mao is placed, the mausoleum houses the hall of revolutionary achievements, and on the second floor there is a cinema hall. There they show the documentary film "Tosca", dedicated to the life of an idol.

3. Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il

After the founder of the North Korean state Kim Il Sung passed away in 1994, his son Kim Jong Il ordered the leader's residence to be converted into a mausoleum. Officially, it is called the Kymsusan Memorial Palace of the Sun. In 2011, the body of Kim Jong Il was laid next to the sarcophagus of the Eternal President of the DPRK. It is forbidden to take pictures, talk loudly and appear in bright clothes in the mausoleum.

4. Ho Chi Minh

The first president of North Vietnam asked in his will to be cremated, his ashes to be placed in three ceramic urns and buried in different parts of the country. But his will was not carried out. When the politician died in 1969, Soviet experts embalmed his body. At first, the mummy was kept in a secret place to protect it from American bombing during the Vietnam War, and the glass coffin was transferred to the mausoleum in Hanoi six years after the death of Ho Chi Minh. Around the tomb there is a garden where about 250 species of flora grow from different regions of Vietnam.

5. Georgy Dimitrov

The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, who was called the "Bulgarian Lenin", died in 1949 in Barvikha, near Moscow, where he came for treatment. The body was taken to Sofia, embalmed and placed in a mausoleum. There it lay until 1990, when the communist regime fell. At the request of relatives (according to official version) Dimitrov was reburied, and the crypt was demolished.
6. Eva Peron

Eva was the wife of Argentine President Juan Peron, for an active civil position she was considered the spiritual leader of the nation. The woman died at the age of 33 from cancer, and her embalmed body was put on public display. After the overthrow of Juan Perón in 1955, the mummy was moved to Milan and buried. Having regained the presidency, Peron sent Eva's body to his homeland and placed it in the family crypt.

The Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung is one of the five mausoleums in the world. The remaining four are in Moscow, Hanoi, Tehran and Beijing. It used to be the residence of Kim Il Sung, which was often used as the Palace of Congresses. After the death of the Great Leader, this huge complex was converted into his Mausoleum. Foreigners can visit the mausoleum only on Thursdays and Sundays, and this is the only place where there is a dress code: we were asked to dress in our best, strict and discreet clothes.

Mausoleum of Kim Il Sung

We were all lined up in a column of four people, and after checking the lists we were allowed inside. The road to the mausoleum is covered with concrete floors. On the left side, Korean workers lined up, and we passed on the right and skipped the line. Kim Il Sung died in 1994. Usually mourning for the deceased in Korea lasts 3 days. But in this case it was extended for 3 years. Although power immediately passed into the hands of Kim Jong Il, all this time the country officially lived without a head of state. Only in 1998 was it announced to the people that Kim Jong Il had been elected to the post of chairman of the DPRK Defense Committee, and he was renamed from "Beloved Leader" to "Great Leader" and "Great Commander". His father received the title "Eternal President".

Queue to the "Eternal President" of the DPRK

I want to tell you about visiting the gift museum for two Kims. Each Great has his own "house", where they are all put on display. The eldest has 222 thousand gifts, while the youngest has a little more than 50 thousand so far. At the entrance to each museum there is an electronic scoreboard with the number of offerings. Apparently, so as not to alter the plates with numbers. Gifts are different: from true masterpieces and works of art to outright consumer goods. In general, all this is very strongly reminiscent of the "Fields of Miracles" museum.

Buddhist temple in North Korea

Before the gift museum, we stopped at a Buddhist temple. Buddhism is the official religion of North Korea. But we did not see believers anywhere, and this temple is the only reminder of religion. Instead of the Buddha, Koreans worship Kim Il Sung and his viceroy on earth, Kim Jong Il, literally deifying them. All these gigantic monuments and monumental structures are nothing but Kim temples. Not without reason, in each of them, our guides made us bow to their portraits. From the temple to the museum of gifts, officially called the "Exhibition of Friendship between Nations", it was only 5 minutes by car. We parked and waited for our guide. One cannot move in this place.

Kim Il Sung Gift Museum

As I already wrote, each Kim has his own building. From the outside it looks small, but in reality it is only a facade. The museum itself goes deep under the rock and at the same time is an excellent bomb shelter. Inside, we were taken along one of the corridors 400 meters long! Entrance doors they weigh 5 tons, open with a button and are guarded by machine gunners with silver "Kalash". We started our tour from the museum of the Great Leader Comrade Kim Il Sung. Although it looks like an old wooden building, it was built in 1978 from concrete and does not have a single window.

Entrance doors weigh 5 tons and are guarded by machine gunners

We were mainly interested in gifts given by our compatriots, and we were led to the hall of gifts from the Soviet Union. Our gifts take three large halls. Basically, these are tea sets, books, paintings that are scary to hang even in the garden back room, and samovars. Eat separate room with armored vehicles. Finally, we looked at two armored railway cars donated by Stalin and Mao, respectively.

Terrace at the Gift Museum, North Korea

The Kim Jong Il Museum was more modest, but also resembled an impregnable fortress.

"Modest" Museum of Kim Jong Il

In this museum, you can trace the evolution of Samsung and LG TVs. Looks like they give him a new TV every year. I was also pleased with the gifts from the director of the South Korean furniture factory. As many as 3 huge halls are filled with his bedroom sets and kitchen tables. All guides in museums in North Korea wear National costumes, and they are always easy to spot in a crowd.

Today we will make the first big tour of Pyongyang, and we will start with the holy of holies - the mausoleum of Comrade Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il. The mausoleum is located in the Kumsusan Palace, where Kim Il Sung once worked and which, after the death of the leader in 1994, was turned into a huge pantheon of memory. After the death of Kim Jong Il in 2011, his body was also placed in the Kumsusan Palace.

Going to the mausoleum is a sacred ceremony in the life of any North Korean worker. Basically, they go there in organized groups - entire organizations, collective farms, military units, student classes. At the entrance to the pantheon, hundreds of groups await their turn in awe. Foreign tourists are allowed to enter the mausoleum on Thursdays and Sundays - guides also set up foreigners in a reverently solemn mood and warn of the need to dress as smartly as possible. Our group, however, for the most part ignored this warning - well, we don’t have anything smarter than jeans and a shirt on our trip (I must say that the DPRK really doesn’t like jeans, considering it “American clothing”). But nothing - let, of course. And here are many other foreigners whom we saw in the mausoleum (Australians, Western Europeans), playing their role to the fullest, dressed very smartly - puffy mourning dresses, tuxedos with a butterfly ...

You cannot take pictures inside the mausoleum and on all approaches to it - so I will try to simply describe what is happening inside. First, tourists wait in line in a small waiting pavilion for foreigners, then go to the common area, where they mix with North Korean groups. At the entrance to the mausoleum itself, you need to hand over phones and cameras, a very thorough inspection - you can only take medicine for the heart with you, if someone suddenly becomes ill with reverence in the front halls with the leaders. And then we ride on a horizontal escalator along a long, long corridor, the marble walls of which are hung with photographs of both leaders in all their greatness and heroism - photographs interspersed different years, from the young revolutionary era of Comrade Kim Il Sung to recent years the reign of his son Comrade Kim Jong Il. On one of places of honor towards the end of the corridor, a photograph of Kim Jong Il was seen in Moscow at a meeting with the then very youthful Russian President, made in 2001, I think the year. This pompous long, long corridor with huge portraits, along which the escalator rides for about 10 minutes, willy-nilly sets you in some kind of solemn mood. Even foreigners from another world are set up - what can we say about the trembling locals, for whom Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il are gods.

From the inside, the Kumsusan Palace is divided into two halves - one is dedicated to Comrade Kim Il Sung, the other is dedicated to Comrade Kim Jong Il. Huge marble halls in gold, silver and jewels, pompous corridors. The luxury and pomp of all this is difficult to describe. The bodies of the leaders lie in two huge semi-dark marble halls, at the entrance to which you pass through another inspection line, where you are driven through the jets of air in order to blow off the last specks of dust from the ordinary people of this world before visiting the main sacred halls. Four people plus a guide come up directly to the bodies of the leaders - we go around the circle and bow. You need to bow to the floor when you are in front of the leader, as well as to the left and right - you do not need to bow while behind the head of the leader. On Thursday and Sunday, foreign groups are interspersed with ordinary Korean workers - it is interesting to observe the reaction of North Koreans to the bodies of leaders. All in the brightest ceremonial outfits - peasants, workers, a lot of military men in uniform. Almost all women cry and wipe their eyes with handkerchiefs, men also often cry - the tears of young thin village soldiers are especially striking. Tantrums happen to many people in mourning halls... People cry touchingly and sincerely - however, they are brought up in this from birth.

After the halls where the bodies of the leaders are buried, the groups pass through other halls of the palace and get acquainted with the awards - one hall is dedicated to the awards of Comrade Kim Il Sung, and the other to the awards of Comrade Kim Jong Il. They also show the personal belongings of the leaders, their cars, as well as two famous railway cars, in which Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il traveled around the world, respectively. Separately, it is worth noting the Hall of Tears - the most pompous hall, where the nation said goodbye to the leaders.

On the way back, we again drove for about 10 minutes along this long, long corridor with portraits - it so happened that several foreign groups were driving in a row, and towards the leaders, already sobbing and nervously fiddling with scarves, only Koreans - collective farmers were driving , workers, military ... Hundreds of people were rushing past us, going to a longed-for meeting with the leaders. It was a meeting of two worlds - we looked at them, and they looked at us. I was very struck by these minutes on the escalator. I broke a little here chronological order, since the day before we had already thoroughly traveled around the regions of the DPRK and got an idea about them - therefore, I will give here what I wrote in the travel notebook on leaving the mausoleum. “For them, it is Gods. And this is the ideology of the country. At the same time, there is poverty in the country, denunciations, people are nothing. Taking into account the fact that almost everyone serves in the army for at least 5-7 years, and the soldiers in the DPRK manually do the most difficult work, including almost 100% of national construction, we can say that this is a slave system, free work force. At the same time, the ideology presents that “the army helps the country, and we need even tougher discipline in the army and in the country in general in order to move towards a brighter future” ... And the country is on average at the level of the 1950s ... But what palaces of leaders! That's how to zombie society! After all, they, knowing no other, really love them, they, if necessary, are ready to kill for Kim Il Sung and are ready to die themselves. Of course, it's great - to love your homeland, to be a patriot of your country, you can also have a good or bad attitude towards this or that political figure. But the way it all happens here is beyond the understanding of modern man!”

On the square in front of the Kumsusan Palace you can take pictures - it is especially interesting to take pictures of people.

1. Women in full dress go to the mausoleum.

2. Sculptural composition at the left wing of the palace.

4. Group photography in front of the mausoleum.

5. Some are taking pictures, others are looking forward to their turn.

6. I also took a photo for memory.

7. Pioneer bow to the leaders.

8. Peasants in ceremonial clothes are waiting in line at the entrance to the mausoleum.

9. Almost 100% of the male population of the DPRK is subject to military conscription for 5-7 years. At the same time, servicemen perform not only military, but also general civilian work - they build everywhere, plow oxen in the fields, work on collective farms and state farms. Women serve for one year and on a voluntary basis - naturally, there are many volunteers.

10. Front facade of the Kumsusan Palace.

11. Next stop - a memorial to the heroes of the struggle for liberation from Japan. Heavy rain…

14. The graves of the fallen stand on the side of the mountain in a checkerboard pattern - so that everyone resting here can see the panorama of Pyongyang from the top of Mount Taesong.

15. The central place of the memorial is occupied by the revolutionary Kim Jong Suk, praised in the DPRK, the first wife of Kim Il Sung, the mother of Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Suk died in 1949 at the age of 31 in her second childbirth.

16. After visiting the memorial, we will head to the suburbs of Pyongyang, the village of Mangyongde, where Comrade Kim Il Sung was born and where for a long time up to already post-war years his grandparents lived. This is one of the most sacred places in North Korea.

19. A tragicomic story happened to this crumpled pot during smelting - not realizing all its holiness, one of our tourists tapped on it with his finger. And our guide Kim did not have time to warn that it is strictly forbidden to touch anything here. One of the employees of the memorial noticed this and called someone. A minute later, our Kim's phone rang - the guide was called somewhere for study. We walked around the park for about forty minutes, accompanied by a driver and a second guide, young guy who did not speak Russian. When Kim became completely anxious, she finally appeared - upset and tearful. When asked what would happen to her now, she smiled sadly and quietly said - “What's the difference?” ... She felt so sorry at that moment ...

20. While our guide Kim was at work, we took a short walk in the park surrounding Mangyongdae. This mosaic panel depicts a young comrade Kim Il Sung leaving his home and leaving the country to fight the Japanese militarists who have occupied Korea. And his grandparents see him off in his native Mangyonde.

21. The next item on the program is a monument to Soviet soldiers who took part in the liberation of Korea from Japan at the very end of World War II.

23. Behind the memorial to our soldiers, a huge park begins, stretching along the hills along the river for several kilometers. In one of the cozy green corners, a rare monument of antiquity was discovered - there are few historical monuments in Pyongyang, since the city was badly damaged during the Korean War of 1950-1953.

24. A beautiful view of the river opens up from the hill - how familiar these wide avenues and panel buildings of high-rise buildings seem to be. But how surprisingly few cars!

25. The newest bridge across the Taedong River is the last of the five bridges envisaged by the post-war master plan for the development of Pyongyang. It was built in the 1990s.

26. Not far from the cable-stayed bridge is the largest in the DPRK, the 150,000th May Day Stadium, which hosts the main sport competitions and the famous Arirang festival is held.

27. A couple of hours ago, I left the mausoleum slightly on the negative, which intensified after some kind of pot of our unfortunate escort staged a scolding in higher instances. But it is worth taking a walk in the park, looking at people - and the mood changes. Children play in a cozy park ...

28. A middle-aged intellectual, secluded on a Sunday afternoon in the shade, studies the works of Kim Il Sung ...

29. Does it remind you of anything? :)

30. Today is Sunday - and the city park is full of vacationers. People play volleyball, just sit on the grass...

31. And the hottest Sunday afternoon was on the open dance floor - both local youth and older Korean workers came off. How daringly they made their bizarre movements!

33. This little man danced the best.

34. We also joined the dancers for 10 minutes - and we were gladly accepted. This is what an alien visitor looks like at a disco in North Korea! :)

35. After walking through the park, we will return to the center of Pyongyang. From the observation deck of the Juche Idea Monument (remember, the one that glows at night and which I shot from the hotel window) offers wonderful views of Pyongyang. Let's enjoy the panorama! So, the socialist city as it is! :)

37. Much is already familiar - for example, central Library named after Comrade Kim Il Sung.

39. Cable-stayed bridge and stadium.

41. Incredible impressions - quite our Soviet landscapes. Tall houses, wide streets and avenues. But how few people are on the streets. And almost no cars! As if, thanks to a time machine, we were transported 30-40 years ago!

42. Completing the construction of a new superhotel for foreign tourists and high-ranking guests.

43. "Ostankino" tower.

44. The most comfortable five-star hotel in Pyongyang - of course, for foreigners.

45. And this is our hotel "Yangakdo" - four stars. I look now - well, it reminds me of the skyscraper of the Moscow design institute where I work! :))))

46. ​​At the foot of the monument to the ideas of Juche, sculptural compositions of working people are installed.

48. In the 36th photo, you may have noticed interesting monument. This is the Monument of the Workers' Party of Korea. Dominant sculptural composition- sickle, hammer and brush. With the hammer and sickle, everything is more or less clear, and the brush in North Korea symbolizes the intelligentsia.

50. A panel is installed inside the composition, in the central part of which the “progressive socialist world masses” are shown who are fighting against the “bourgeois puppet government of South Korea” and are moving the “occupied southern territories torn apart by the class struggle” towards socialism and the inevitable unification with the DPRK.

51. This is the South Korean populace.

52. This is the progressive intelligentsia of South Korea.

53. This is apparently an episode of the ongoing armed struggle.

54. Grey-haired veteran and young pioneer.

55. Sickle, hammer and brush - collective farmer, worker and intellectual.

56. In conclusion of today's post, I want to give some more scattered photographs of Pyongyang taken while moving around the city. Facades, episodes, artifacts. Let's start with the Pyongyang railway station. By the way, Moscow and Pyongyang are still connected by rail (as I understand it, several trailer cars to the Beijing train). But here's a ride from Moscow to the DPRK along railway Russian tourists cannot - these carriages are intended only for residents of North Korea working for us.

57. A typical urban panel - there are a lot of them in North Korea.

58. Czech tram - and ordinary people. The DPRK is very good people- simple, sincere, kind, friendly, cordial, hospitable. Later, I will dedicate a separate post to the people of North Korea, which I grabbed on the streets.

59. A pioneer tie, taken off after school, flutters in the May breeze.

60. Another Czech tram. However, the trams here are all so familiar to our eyes. :)

61. "Southwest"? "Vernadsky avenue"? "Strogino?" Or is it Pyongyang? :))))

62. But this is really a rare trolleybus!

63. Black "Volga" against the background of the Museum of the Patriotic Liberation War. There are a lot of our auto industry in the DPRK - Volga, military and civilian UAZs, sevens, MAZs, a few years ago the DPRK bought a large batch of Gazelles and Prior from Russia. But they, unlike the Soviet automobile industry, are dissatisfied.

64. Another photo of the "sleeping" area.

65. In the previous photo, an agitator car is visible. Here it is larger - such cars constantly drive around the cities and towns of North Korea, slogans, speeches and appeals, or just revolutionary music or marches, sound from the mouthpieces from morning to evening. Agitation machines are designed to cheer up the working people and inspire them to even more diligent work for the benefit of a brighter future.

66. And again the quarters of a socialist city.

67. Simple Soviet "Maz" ...

68. ... And a tram from fraternal Czechoslovakia.

69. Final photos - Arc de Triomphe in honor of the victory over Japan.

70. And this stadium reminded me a lot of our Moscow Dynamo stadium. Years of commercials in the forties, when he was still brand new with a needle.

North Korea leaves ambiguous, very mixed feelings. And they accompany you constantly while you are here. I will return to walking around Pyongyang, and next time we will talk about a trip to the north of the country, to the Myohang Mountains, where we will see several ancient monasteries, visit the Museum of Gifts to Comrade Kim Il Sung, visit the Renmun Cave with stalactites, stalagmites and a group of military men in one of the dungeons - and also just look at the informal life of the DPRK outside the capital

It is not known for certain whose experience inspired the authoritarians of the past century to mummify the deceased leaders and heroes. Whether the pharaohs ancient egypt who wished to appear before God's court of comme il faut, or the Papuans of the western part of New Guinea, who withered their dead ancestors for a long memory and as a reserve food supply. Most likely, the communists and other -ists simply did not want to give the new national god to be eaten by bacteria and used the successes of chemistry and biology in matters of conservation of corpses. Indeed, back in 1881, the body of the great physician Nikolai Pirogov was successfully mummified on the outskirts of Vinnitsa, and in the second decade of the 20th century it “squeaked” both in Europe and beyond the Ocean.

As long as the dictator is alive, great power is concentrated in his hands. In order to fully inherit it, the successors of the deceased gods created three-dimensional icons from their corpses, quite miraculous. Remember the Soviet cry: "Lenin lived, Lenin is alive, Lenin will live!" With Vladimir Ilyich, we will begin our excursion into the history of the pharaohs of the past century.

1. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

This is now a visit to the Lenin Mausoleum on Red Square is considered a symptom of latent necrophilia. Thirty years ago, queues lined up at the tomb of a Russian undertaker longer than for an imported cervelat.

Lenin asked to be buried after his death as a normal person, but he asked unconvincingly. Therefore, the leadership of the Land of Soviets organized the reception of fake telegrams from workers and peasants with a request to save the body of the leader from decay. From 1924 to this day, Volodya, without brains and entrails, rests under bulletproof glass, having gone on a business trip to Tyumen only for the period of the war of 1941-45. Even today, he is periodically undressed, washed, powdered and dressed in a clean suit. And in 1998, two Moscow slovenly artists created an unusual cake in the form of the mummy of Ilyich, which was devoured by invited journalists and art critics at the opening of the exhibition. To mournful music.

2. Grigory Kotovsky

An optional character in jokes about Vasily Ivanovich and Petka, famous for his brilliant bald head and iron character, Kotovsky was the first bandit among the heroes civil war and the first hero among the bandits of New Russia. Grigory Ivanych was killed in 1925 in Chabanka, near Odessa.

A year and a half passed after the death of Lenin, so the legendary red commander was also immortalized by mummification and placed on public display in the mausoleum in the city of Birzula, renamed Kotovsk. In 1941, drunken Romanian soldiers abused the body of a Sovietization hero. Until the end of the occupation, his remains were hidden in the basement locals, previously doused with alcohol. In 1965, "mausoleum No. 3" was restored in the form of a stele over the crypt, now it has a sad look and is littered with seed husks and beer containers in the evenings. The entrance to the tomb is closed with a rusty lock, but if you find a cloak in the local museum, you can enter and look into the eye sockets of the legend of the Bessarabian steppes through the window in the coffin lid.

3. Georgi Dimitrov

The Bulgarian "Stalin" Georgi Dimitrov died in 1949 in a sanatorium near Moscow somehow ugly. No one noticed a clear deterioration in his health, and an autopsy revealed cirrhosis of the liver and heart failure. There is a version that the leader of the Bulgarian communists was poisoned with mercury, but it is not recognized as official. After his death, Dimitrov's body was embalmed, returned to his homeland and paraded in a mausoleum in the center of Sofia, which was built in just six days (!) - so strong was the "people's love" for the leader of the Comintern.

After the fall of the Belinsky wall, the glass coffin with the body of Dimitrov was secretly buried, so that no one could see, and in 1999 the Bulgarians celebrated the 50th anniversary of the construction of the mausoleum, barbarously destroying it ... from the fifth time. Now, on the site of the tomb, there is an ordinary concrete platform, on which you can ride a skateboard or a bicycle. Or even Bulgarian buffalo.

4. Eva Peron

The beautiful actress, the wife of the Pharaoh of Argentina Juan Peron, during her lifetime aroused admiration and envy among men and women all over the globe. Having married the dictator, she fell in love not so much with him as with the authorities and, according to historians, even intended to move her husband from the throne, changing the ordinary theater to the geopolitical theater and becoming the people's "symbol of social justice", and then "in a skirt".

In 1952, at the age of 33, Evita died of uterine cancer. Her body was embalmed by the best mummifier that the Argentine authorities could find, nicknamed "the master of the art of death." For two years, the sarcophagus with the charming corpse of Signora Peron stood in Juan's house. “As if sleeping,” said everyone who saw.

In 1955, Peron was overthrown, and the mummy of the legendary woman was taken to Milan and buried there under an assumed name. Peron, who soon returned to power, remarried, and only in 1974 did Evita's body return to his homeland and rest in the family crypt. Pilgrims - darkness! Yes, only the beauty of the past can not be seen.

5. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin

There was such an anecdote. Say, the Bolsheviks put Stalin's corpse in Lenin's mausoleum, and in the morning the coffin with the mustachioed one is in the backyard of the tomb. And so several times in a row, despite the reinforced guard. We decided to check what kind of miracle is happening. And now midnight comes in Moscow, an angry Ilyich comes out of the mausoleum to the sound of chimes and with the words “How long can you repeat that there is no hostel here !?”, Throws the “father of peoples” into the fresh air.

The body of a smoker and drunkard, who was allegedly poisoned by wretched doctors, was embalmed and brought into a ziggurat near the walls of the Kremlin in March 1953.

And on Halloween, October 30, 1961, after German Titov flew into space and told Khrushchev that God did not mind, Stalin, who intended to resurrect in the form of a zombie, decided to be buried in Moscow. Thought - on Novodevichy cemetery, but took pity, and issued a bloody Kobe a warrant for a hole near the Kremlin wall. Against the background of Roza Zemlyachka and Marshal Tolbukhin. Since then, Lenin has been alone.

According to the Listvez Internet portal, the top ten mummified celebrities and famous mummies (oh, Isis, when will I learn to write without tautologies!) are our old acquaintance, Saint Bernadette (I hope you still remember,), the frozen virgin Juanita from Peru, baby Rosalia Lombardo, Tolund the man from prehistoric Denmark, and the mysterious Lady Dai discovered in China.

We will certainly honor their memory at an opportunity, but for now we will return to our sheep, that is, tyrants. At the same time, let's try to mentally predict who will be the next "sleeping beauty" in the new century. Is it the one you think of, dear reader?

What a pity that the author, whose awareness of the role of the leaders of countries in the life of the masses coincided with the Five Years of a magnificent funeral, did not preserve a drawing of a monumental structure, made with a fountain pen in a school notebook, signed “Andropov’s Pyramid” ...

6. Klement Gottwald

Both laughter and sin, but it is officially believed that the leader of post-war Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, caught a deadly cold at the funeral of Comrade Stalin. The fact that the chairman of the HRC was a syphilitic and alcoholic is not taken into account. The people decided that Stalin decided to take with him to Hell the same Marxist reformer as he was. So that together it would be nice to remember the repressions and famines.

Of course, Gottwald was embalmed. But either the preservative formula was incorrectly calculated, or the damned saboteurs put their hands on it, but after lying a bit in the ugly, spoiling the view of beautiful Prague, the mausoleum, Czech No. 1 itself began to deteriorate.

Every year and a half, Clement had to be embalmed anew, replacing decayed fragments with decorative inserts. In 1960, when, despite the efforts of the court physicians, Gottwald completely turned black, the mausoleum was closed "for re-registration", and two years later the gloomy-radiant corpse was cremated. Well, peace be upon him and pioneer salute.

7. Ho Chi Minh

The founder of Soviet power in Vietnam, the kind grandfather Ho Chi Minh naively bequeathed that he be cremated after his death. But no matter how! The best masters Oriental medicine, working hand in hand with Soviet specialists in 1969, allegedly created a miracle - the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh to this day looks like he did not die, but lay down to sleep for an hour or two.

Skeptics say that the sarcophagus contains not the body of the leader, but a doll. And that in the basement under the mausoleum of grandfather Ho is the worst underground prison in Vietnam. To spit in the eyes of skeptics and make up own opinion, you need to fly to Hanoi, pay 2 dollars for a ticket and visit the majestic mausoleum. And then tell us, okay?

8. Mao Zedong

Mao Zedong, the Great Pilot of the People's Republic of China, did not bathe or brush his teeth during his lifetime. There was such a sin, with all the merits. Maybe it happened after shaking hands with Comrade Stalin?

Moreover, in 1956, Mao signed a law that all cultural leaders of China must be burned after death. 20 years passed, and Zedong died as a result of two heart attacks at the age of 83. And no one dared to burn it. Embalmed - and in a crystal coffin, for popular worship. The ears, however, protruded and the stomach was swollen. Soviet specialists could not help, because in the 1970s the USSR and China did not talk to each other, composed mutually offensive poems and painted caricatures.

It is believed that the mausoleum of Mao Zedong must withstand any cataclysms - earthquakes, default and even a nuclear missile attack. For 35 years, the tomb of the Chinese pharaoh was visited by about 180 million people.

9. Enver Hoxha

Unlike Khoja Nasreddin, Enver Khoja did not ride a donkey and did not differ in special wisdom. But he transplanted all of Albania onto donkeys, banning private vehicles during the years of his authoritarian rule. A consistent Stalinist, Hoxha fought against "enemies of the people" and named after himself. And the cult of Stalin himself in Albania, which managed to quarrel with the whole world, even with China, persisted until the end of the 1980s.

With the coming to power of the charming terminator Gorbachev in the USSR, Comrade Hodja became sad, suffered a heart attack and died in November 1985. Mourning lasted 9 days. "But father" was embalmed and placed not even in a mausoleum, but in a real Pyramid. And in 1991, they were reburied in the ground in a regular cemetery. The Hoxha Pyramid now serves as a venue for conferences, concerts and exhibitions.

10. Kim Il Sung

There has not been, is not, and will not be on Earth greater love than that experienced by the people of the DPRK for Comrade Kim Il Sung, who built the most isolated state in the world and died of a heart attack in search of a place for negotiations on the unification of the two Koreas in 1994. After his death, he was declared the "eternal president" of Korea, embalmed and relocated to the huge Geumsusan Memorial Palace, covering an area of ​​350 hectares. A billion dollars was once spent to renovate the building. This is in a country where everything is on the cards.

To get communion to "eternity", you need eat more than one dog overcome many Kafkaesque stairs and corridors. The open sarcophagus with the body of Kim Il Sung is forbidden to photograph on pain of death. Eyewitnesses say that the head of the leader ... shrank. Official guided tours "under escort" are held on Thursdays and Sundays. A foreigner has to agree on admission in advance, quite in advance. Usually they refuse.