Lenin's Embalmers

In 1924 Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, died and, at Stalin s instigation, his body was mummified and put on display. Ilya Zbarsky s father Boris was one of the team that carried out the embalming and continued to work for many years in the mausoleum laboratory that was dedicated to maintaining Lenin s body in perpetuity. Ilya Zbarsky himself worked in the laboratory which went on to be used to preserve leaders from elsewhere in the communist bloc. His astonishing memoir provides an eye-witness account of the laboratory s work and, because of his family s closeness to the Soviet hierarchy, gives new insights into the activities of Stalin and his henchmen. He concludes his unique book by considering whether the mausoleum, which survives today only by embalming dead Mafiosi and nouveaux riches, may have to close and Lenin s remains be finally interred.