Body of VI Lenin

[kabanchik]

Having just returned from Moscow last month, I must say, that if you are interested in Soviet History, and have a basic knowledge of the Cyrillic alphabet, as well as three or four hours to kill, one must visit the Novodevichiy Cemetery. My wife and I set out to visit the final resting place of her great-grandfather, Major-General Vasilii Grigoryevich Klementyev. She had not been there since she was a little girl in 1966, attending the general's funeral, yet we managed to quickly find the spot. After paying our respects, and laying flowers there, we rounded the corner, and found the BEAUTIFUL and touching grave and monument to Raisa Gorbachev. For the next three hours, we stolled among the markers and stones, locating one famous name after another, reading like a who's who of Soviet military, academic, cultural, scientific, and political personalities: Kozhedub, Pokryshkin, Koldunov (the very marshal whose uniform was recently offered on Ebay), Tupolev, Mikoyan, Guryevich, Myashchischev, Titov (the second man into space, after Gagarin), Alliluyeva (Stalins wife, whose marble monument bore so many scars of acts of descecration, that the whole edifice is shrouded in Lucite armor), as well as counless others of lesser-known names, like the designer of the T34 tank (whose grave bears a model of that famous fighting vehicle). One cannot walk twenty feet without five meters without seeing the name of persons many of us knew from the newsreels of the times. Khruschev's grave is there as well, bearing an uncannily friendly likeness of old Nikita Sergeyevich, smiling at the onlookers with eerie joviality. There are stars of Soviet film and stage, military men galore, victims of famous air disasters, as well as wives of leaders and dignitaries who are buried elsewhere. The monuments themselves are unlike anything we are familiar with here in the west, some extraordinarily breathtaking, touching, and SO beautiful!
I cannot emphasize this enough: If you have the wherewithal and the time, GO THERE!! You will find it a memorable experience, which you will NOT soon forget!