Location: Red Square

Have you ever felt the urge of seeing a taxidermodied communist revolutionary from the early 1900s? If so, you and I were thinking the same. And thankfully, Moscow offers you this opportunity (from 10:00am to 1:00pm most days). When I has first arrived, Lenin was temporarily closed for a few months for repairs, leaving me to assume his arm fell off or something like that. Either way, it meant I had to wait.

But then, one day in early November, I noticed something. A line of people was starting to form in Red Square next to the building labled ЛЕНИН (Lenin). Could this be my chance? I did not hesitate and ran to the line, and to my pleasant surprise, it started moving, and within twenty minutes I was at the front. As I walked towards the entrance, I looked to my right and saw the graves of many former Soviet leaders from Stalin to Brezhnev, Revolutionary leaders, and even to Americans, John Reed and William Haywood. This was it. Russian history of the 20th century lying under my feet. Then I walked through the doors.

Right in the entranceway stood a guard. "Shhhhhhhhhh!" he said rather loudly, beckoning me, and everyone else, to be quiet. I obliged, then headed down a long, dimlymlit corridor, past another guard, and then reached a large room emminating a reddish glow. Now I know, this was it! Vladimir Ilyaich Ulyanov was just a few steps away. I walked I walked in, and there, in the center of the room, lay a glass casket, and in it a man. He was bald with a whispy light brown beard. his eyes were closed and his body seemed a bit waxy (although that could have been just from the red lighting of the room. But one thing stood out more than anything, he was short. And I mean really short. 5'5'' (165cm). In my mind, he had always been this powerful, towering figure, but here, he was just a little fella. Interesting. I guess people really were smaller back in the day.