- In January of 1924, founder
of the Russian Communist Party and head of the Soviet State,
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, died. To give his followers a
chance to pay their respects, Lenin's body lay in state
in the House of Trade Unions in Moscow for six days. At the time, the government
had no intention of preserving Lenin's corpse
for posterity, plus it had been Lenin's wish to be
buried near his mother, so he was embalmed in the typical no-frills way, and presented to his people. But when you're the deceased
poster child of an entire political movement, things
don't always go as planned. After being moved to a temporary
mausoleum on Red Square, it was decided to allow
the public to continue viewing Lenin's body for a few more weeks. After almost two months
and over 750,000 visitors, Lenin was looking so good,
due in part to the cold of the Russian winter, that
the government decided to keep his body on display
just a little bit longer. Like 93 years longer. But as you might suspect,
regular ol' embalming wasn't good enough our pal Vlad and
his potentially eternal gig. Are we allowed to call him Vlad? So a crack team of
scientists were assembled to experiment on ways to
turn him into a sculpture of the body that is constructed
out of the body itself or a living sculpture,
as it's been called. Almost 100 years later Lenin,
or what's left of Lenin, is still being sculpted. And it's for that reason
he is an Iconic Corpse. When talking about the
science experiment that is the corpse of Vladimir Lenin,
the term embalmed is hardly an apt description. Sure embalming fluid was
and is used on Lenin's corpse, but the pains
taken to render his body dynamic, flexible, and emergent, as Lenin preservation expert Alexei
Yurchak describes it, go way beyond what your local
funeral home is offering. Unless your local funeral
home is offering to regularly bathe your grandma's
corpse in formaldehyde and replace pieces of her
decaying body with wax. If that's the case,
then boy is my face red! Once it was decided to
preserve Lenin's body for as long as possible by the Commission for the Organization of Lenin's
Funeral and the Commission for the Preservation of Lenin's
Body, Soviet Russia was all about the commissions,
the method had to be chosen. But no suitable preservation
technology existed at the time, so Professor of
Medicine Vladimir Vorobiev and biochemist Boris Zbarsky
were permitted to attempt an experimental embalming
procedure on Lenin's corpse. After four months of
experimentation and basically making it up as they went
along, Vorobiev and Zbarsky declared their experiment a success. Lenin was perfectly preserved! Well, that is, Lenin would
stay preserved if the corpse was continuously treated
using their methods, and they didn't really say
perfectly preserved it was more: How long can we expect Lenin's body to hold up according to this method? I will allow myself not
to answer this question. What we do know is that
Vorobiev and Zbarsky developed a quasibiological technique that combines preservation with substitution. In the early days of Lenin's
preservation, scientists had to contend with the
fact that Lenin's corpse had previously been autopsied
and embalmed, thus severing many of his arteries and blood vessels. In order to properly deliver
an embalming solution to all parts of a body,
the circulatory system has to be intact. So instead they chose the
painstaking process of using single, microinjection
needles to inject an embalming fluid into various parts of Lenin's body. Most of the injection sites
were were cuts or scars that already existed, so
as not to mar Lenin's skin. Additionally, a
double-layer rubber suit was constructed to keep a thin
layer of embalming fluid against his skin at all
times when he lies in state. The rubber suit is hidden
under his clothes, hence why only Lenin's head and hands are visible. But just because you can't
see the full Lenin, doesn't mean someone ain't lookin'! Every 18 months Lenin
undergoes what is called big procedures at the Center
for Scientific Research and Teaching Methods in
Biochemical Technologies, AKA the Lenin Lab. Lenin is stripped down,
his clothes are either replaced or cleaned and
pressed, all the fluid is drained from his body,
and he takes a bath. Spa day at the Lenin Lab! It's actually more like a
spa retreat rather than a spa day for Lenin,
because the big procedures take two months, a time Lenin
is not on public display. Every inch of Lenin's corpse
is examined for decay, mold, or damage, then the
body is submerged in a series of special baths
consisting of a glycerol solution, formaldehyde,
potassium acetate, alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, acetic
acid solution and acetic sodium among other things. Each bath is specially
designed to impact a different part of Lenin's body,
skin, muscles, bones, etc. But not to leave any stone
unturned, or corpse liquid unstirred, the fluid that
is drained from Lenin's body is inspected for any
changes that could indicate mildew or decomposition. That way small adjustments
can be made to the fluid that goes into Lenin when
they re-embalm him and send him back out into the trenches. However, it takes embalm,
bath, and beyond to keep Lenin looking like Lenin. What's the beyond you ask? It's replacing parts of
Lenin's body when they begin to look less than lifelike. When hydrolysis began to
plague Lenin, or the process through which fats in a
corpse liquefy and flow out of their designated areas
causing wrinkles and cavities, scientists started injecting
his skin and tissues with a material made of paraffin,
glycerin, and carotene. This material smooths and
fills Lenin's skin, while maintaining the texture, even the color, of his face and body. It's like corpse Botox. Over the years, this
artificial fat has mostly replaced the fats in Lenin's body. But girl, Lenin's aging skin
needs all the help it can get. Using a special secret material, did you really think we'd
get through a video about Vladimir Lenin's iconic
corpse without any secrets? Are you new? The Lenin Lab scientists
have remodeled parts of Lenin's face and body
that have not withstood the test of time. Researchers created the
special secret material when in 1945, crisis struck with The Case of the Missing Foot Skin! On March 9th, the director
of the future KGB and supervisor of the Lenin Lab,
Lavrentii Beria, reported that during a gelatin
treatment, a small piece of skin from Vladimir Lenin's
foot had gone missing! A thorough investigation
was conducted but the rogue foot skin was never found. However, on the bright
side, that led Lenin Lab scientists to create
artificial skin that is nearly indecipherable from Lenin's real skin. The truth of the matter
is, very little of Lenin's original biology remains. His skin has all but been
replaced, his internal organs including his brain
have been removed, even his eyelashes are fake. At this point, less than 23%
of Lenin is actually Lenin. No doubt what is presented
to us as Lenin's corpse is amazing, but not so much for
its preservation but as a testament to biochemical
and biomedical innovation. In fact, some of what the
Lenin Lab developed has legitimate medical applications. Like a technique to keep
blood flowing during kidney transplants, and the the
world's first and only noninvasive skin cholesterol test. But regardless of whether
they're dealing with Lenin himself or what has been
transformed into a living sculpture of Lenin, the
scientists at the Lenin Lab remain devoted to preserving Lenin's image in the most minute detail. Along with gallons of
embalming fluid, $200,000 of government money is pumped
into Lenin's corpse every year. How many corpses can say
they have an entire lab and a couple hundred grand at their disposal? So that there you go deathlings. Vladimir Lenin: part man, part experiment, all Iconic Corpse. Can you guess what our
next Iconic Corpse will be? This video is made from
donations with generous donations from death enthusiast just like you. Psst, hey over here. It's me, Caitlin's new book,
"From Here to Eternity." I'm coming out in about a
month, and I would love for you to pre-order me. If you like Caitlin's
hijinks in these videos, you'll love me. Okay, I'll leave links
to me in the description. Thanks, bye!
