What do they find in old crypts? Death cult in old Europe

At the end last summer Major construction work began on Maxim Gorky Street. According to the project, this central highway should have a four-lane roadway, modern sleeper-free tram tracks with soft running, and landscaped sidewalks. It's definitely a necessary thing. Maxim Gorky Street (formerly Sennaya) has not undergone such a major alteration since 1811, when it was first depicted on the very first plan of the city of Rostov-on-Don, signed with the highest Russian Emperor Alexander I.

However, the very first section of reconstruction passed through the territory of the old Rostov cemetery, which everyone had forgotten about. When workers first came across human remains, they became alarmed and called the police. Law enforcement officers, convinced that this was a very old burial place and that there was no crime here, lost all interest in the human remains. And the finds of bones began to follow one after another. On the walls of the trench dug for the water pipes, one could see niches of old graves, from which human bones protruded.

And then the excavator bucket, which was opening up a layer of asphalt where the roadway passed, came across brickwork. At first glance, it became clear that this was the lining of two ancient crypts. When several bricks were removed from the top of the vaulted ceiling, decay was clearly smelled from the resulting hole. The work was suspended, and representatives of science and archaeologists were called to the site of the find.
“Since there could be valuables in the crypts, I went to the city department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which is located literally around the corner,” said the chairman of the Rostov branch of the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments A.O. Kozhin. “I outlined the situation over the internal phone from the duty officer and asked for a patrol unit to guard this burial at night so that it would not be opened by vandals under the cover of darkness.

One of the policemen, already in the dark, began to shine a flashlight into the opening of the crypt. In the beam of light a completely intact coffin was visible, upholstered with some kind of colored border.

The unpleasant smell intensified and reached the audience, who were watching from the sidelines. One mother hurried to take her child away, another woman aloud expressed fear that some kind of infection could spread from the opened grave. The police wisely did not delve further into old grave, and covered the hole with some cardboard. But the smell still came...
The work of opening the crypts and examining them was supervised by the leading archaeologist of the state autonomous institution“Don Heritage” Alexey Garmashov. One of the very first, working versions (even before the opening of the burials) was that priests were buried here - ministers of the Rostov Church in the name of Stanislav, which before the revolution was built nearby, in Soborny Lane. This idea was suggested by the form of burial: crypts are more typical for Catholics than for Orthodox Christians. In any case, it was clear that it was not ordinary Rostovites who were buried here, but most likely clergymen.
Nearby, on the site of the “House of Professorship” (Soborny, 39), the majestic Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was once built (demolished in the 30s of the last century). There was a cemetery around it. The clergy of this temple could also rest in the crypts.
However, with a more thorough historical analysis of the find, A.I. Garmashov put forward a completely different version. The fact is that the church and the Assumption Cathedral were built in the 80s of the 19th century, when Sennaya Street already existed, although it was the outskirts of Rostov. Of course, no one would create crypts under the feet of passersby and the wheels of carts. Consequently, the burials should be attributed to an earlier period.
And before, next to this place there was the Church of All Saints. Its history began back in 1785, when it was decided to build a new, more spacious Intercession Church in the Dimitrievsky Fortress. The old wooden church was dismantled, and these materials were used to build a church in the city cemetery, which was then located at the intersection of Soborny Lane with the current Krasnoarmeyskaya streets, as well as Greek city Hair. The church was built very quickly, in just a year and a half, and on May 19, 1787 it was consecrated by Archpriest John in the name of All Saints.
The city cemetery was abolished at the beginning of the 19th century - it was already marked in the foreground of Rostov dotted line. The city churchyard was moved to the west, to the New Settlement (now the Sports Palace is located on this site). And Sennaya Street, as noted by A.I. Garmashov, although it was noted on the first city plan, was only as promising, for future development. In fact, in those years this area was a wasteland overgrown with grass.
Much later, the cemetery was demolished, Sennaya Street ran along it, in Soviet time named after Maxim Gorky. All Saints Church burned down as a result of a big fire on October 3, 1865. It was not restored, since at that time in the new city cemetery, at the expense of the mayor A.M. Baykov, a new church was founded, which became All Saints (blowed up in 1966). And the crypts, like other graves in the old city cemetery, ended up under the feet of passers-by.
- Consequently, these burials most likely contain the clergy of the ancient All Saints Church. And they were buried no later than the 30s of the 18th century, he concludes based on the research historical analysis leading archaeologist of the “Don Heritage” Alexey Ivanovich Garmashov.

The specialist’s assumptions were almost completely confirmed the next day, when the crypts and both coffins were opened. The brick from which the crypts were made caught my attention. Roughly shaped, artisanally fired, without the company marks that Rostov brick manufacturers used to designate their products. This means that the brickwork of the crypts dates back to an earlier time, when our city was just in its infancy.

The surprise was caused by the first coffin, which saw the light of day for the first time after two centuries in the crypt. The fairly well-preserved tree was upholstered with a border, which formed a Orthodox cross.
Since it was expected that the remains of a clergyman would be found in the grave, a representative of the Don Metropolis was present at the opening of the crypt.
With the help of ropes, the massive house was removed to the surface of the earth. They immediately lifted the lid carefully. The priest standing next to him continuously read a prayer...

Sunlight fell on the body of a man in a priest's robe, with a cross and handrails. It was precisely a body (albeit mummified), and not a disintegrated skeleton, which could be expected in ancient grave. The head lay high on the pillow, an Orthodox cross was clutched in clasped hands. Hair was even visible on the deceased's head!

The second coffin, also perfectly preserved, was opened in the same way. But only bones remained in it. Based on the remains of clothing, it was determined that a woman was buried here. According to initial assumptions, this is the wife of the buried priest, or one of his relatives. There is a very high probability that the remains of one of the abbots of the All Saints Church have been found.
When the coffin was raised to the surface, the lower completely rotted board fell off and the remains remained in the crypt.

In church practice, such data makes it possible to raise the question of the identity of the deceased before the Canonization Commission. It is still premature to talk about obvious signs of holiness, but the Commission for Canonization of the Rostov Diocese has begun to study this case. We will try to establish the name of the priest and at least some information about his life,” commented the press secretary of the head of the Don Metropolis I.P. Petrovsky.
The church actively joined in the examination of the excavated site of the old Orthodox cemetery. The remains from the crypt, as well as numerous bone fragments from other burials, have now been transferred to the Church of the Intercession Holy Mother of God, which is next to the Northern Cemetery.

Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to identify all the people found. But, taking into account the burial place, traditions and regulations of that time, we can accurately determine that by religious affiliation they were Orthodox Christians. Therefore, all fragments of human remains found during road work were placed in a common container and also sent to the Intercession Church. Our sacred duty, during reburial, is not only to observe due reverence, but also to perform the first, probably in several centuries, funeral prayer for all these people,” says Igor Petrovsky.
The diocesan commission for canonization has already begun its work. If data and grounds for canonization are found, it means that not just an object of archaeological encumbrance was found on Gorky Street, but a miracle of God happened, the press secretary of the Don Metropolis emphasized.
It remains only to mention the panic rumors that spread across Rostov last week. They say that some kind of infection might crawl out of the ancient cemetery and spread throughout the city. The city’s sanitary and epidemiological services did not seem to notice the opening of old graves...

The 5th Earl of Carnarvon, George Herbert, hired Egyptologist and archaeologist Howard Carter in 1907 for observations and excavations in the Valley of the Kings, and 15 years later the long-awaited moment came - the opening of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Photos from those years will tell us how all this happened.

Searches in the valley, which lasted for many years, yielded very modest results, which over time brought the wrath of Carter's employer upon him. In 1922 Lord Carnarvon told him that next year will stop financing the work.

1923 Lord Carnarvon, who financed the excavations, reads on the veranda of Carter's house near the Valley of the Kings.

Carter, desperate for a breakthrough, decided to return to the previously abandoned excavation site. On November 4, 1922, his team discovered a step carved into the rock. By the end of the next day, the entire staircase had been cleared. Carter immediately sent a message to Carnarvon, begging him to come as quickly as possible.

On November 26, Carter, along with Carnarvon, opened a small hole in the corner of the door at the end of the stairs. Holding the candle, he looked inside.

“At first I saw nothing, hot air rushed out of the room, causing the candle flame to flicker, but soon, as my eyes adjusted to the light, details of the room slowly appeared from the fog, strange animals, statues and gold - the glitter of gold everywhere.”
Howard Carter

A team of archaeologists has discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, the youth king who ruled Egypt from 1332 to about 1323 BC.

November 1925. Death mask Tutankhamun.

Despite signs that the tomb had been visited twice by ancient robbers, the contents of the room remained virtually untouched. The tomb was stuffed with thousands of priceless artifacts, including a sarcophagus containing the mummified remains of Tutankhamun.

January 4, 1924. Howard Carter, Arthur Callender and an Egyptian worker open the doors to get their first look at Tutankhamun's sarcophagus.

Each object in the tomb was carefully described and cataloged before removal. This process took almost eight years.

December 1922. A ceremonial bed in the shape of a Celestial Cow, surrounded by supplies and other objects in the front room of the tomb.

December 1922. Gilded lion bed and other objects in the hallway. The wall of the burial chamber is guarded by black Ka statues.

1923 A set of shuttles in the tomb treasury.

December 1922. A gilded lion bed and an inlaid breastplate are among other objects in the front room.

December 1922. Under the lion bed in the front room are several boxes and chests, as well as an ebony and ivory chair that Tutankhamun used as a child.

1923 A gilded bust of the Heavenly Cow Mehurt and chests were in the treasury of the tomb.

1923 Chests inside the treasury.

December 1922. Decorative alabaster vases in the front room.

January 1924. In the "laboratory" created in the tomb of Seti II, restorers Arthur Mace and Alfred Lucas clean one of the Ka statues from the front room.

November 29, 1923. Howard Carter, Arthur Callender and an Egyptian worker wrap one of the Ka statues for transport.

December 1923. Arthur Mace and Alfred Lucas work on the golden chariot from Tutankhamun's tomb outside the "laboratory" in the tomb of Seti II.

1923 Anubis statue on a funeral bier.

December 2, 1923. Carter, Callender and two workers remove the partition between the front room and the burial chamber.

December 1923. Inside the outer ark in the burial chamber, a huge linen cloth with golden rosettes reminiscent of the night sky envelops the smaller ark.

December 30, 1923. Carter, Mace, and an Egyptian worker carefully roll up the linen.

December 1923. Carter, Callender and two Egyptian workers carefully dismantle one of the golden arks in the burial chamber.

October 1925. Carter examines the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun.

October 1925. Carter and a worker examine a sarcophagus made of pure gold.

The property is full of architectural monuments, quiet streets lined with granite tiles, neighbors are millionaires, movie and sports stars, artists, sculptors and presidents. But this is not a place for a measured and calm life, but just the opposite - we're talking about O " city ​​of the dead"in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires. Recoleta is one of the most beautiful and famous cemeteries in the world and an architectural monument protected by the state and UNESCO. This is both an active necropolis and a popular tourist route at the same time.

Maxim Lemos, professional cameraman and director, probably traveled to all countries Latin America and now works as a guide and travel organizer. On his website he posted detailed description Recoleta cemeteries and interesting stories associated with this place.

Recoleta does not look like a cemetery in the usual sense. Rather, it is a small town, with narrow and wide alleys, majestic crypt houses (there are more than 6,400 of them), incredibly beautiful chapels and sculptures. This is one of the most aristocratic and ancient cemeteries, which can be placed on a par with the famous Monumental de Staglieno in Genoa and Père Lachaise in Paris.

“The funeral traditions of South America are wild and creepy,” Maxim begins the “tour.” — The deceased is buried in a good coffin in a normal, beautiful crypt. But if these people are not rich, then they do not bury him there forever, since they have to pay to rent a beautiful crypt. Therefore, after 3-4 years the deceased is usually reburied. Why 3−4? So that the corpse has time to decompose enough so that it can be placed more compactly, now on a truly eternal refuge. It all looks like this. 3 years after the first funeral, the relatives of the deceased gather in the cemetery, near the crypt. Cemetery employees pull a coffin out of the crypt. Then they open it and, to the sobs of relatives “mama-mama...” or “grandmother-grandmother,” they shift the half-decomposed corpse piece by piece from beautiful coffin in a black plastic bag. The bag is carried solemnly to another part of the cemetery, and is stuffed into one of the small holes in the large wall. Then the hole is walled up and a sign is glued. When I found out about this, the hair on my head started to move.

The crypts are located quite close to each other, so the cemetery is quite small in area.

Here's Recoleta from a helicopter. It can be seen to be in the middle of a large residential area. Moreover, the square in front of the cemetery is the center of life in this area, there are many restaurants and bars.

The cemetery is active, so there are carts ready to transport coffins right at the entrance. At the top, above the main gate, is a bell. It is rung when a person is buried.

From 1910 to 1930, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world. And during these times, there was an unspoken competition between the Argentine nobility to see who could build the most luxurious crypt for their family. Argentine capitalists did not spare money, they hired the best European architects, and the most expensive materials were brought from Europe. It was in those years that the cemetery acquired this appearance.

Whoever tried his best. For example, here is a crypt in the form of a Roman column.

And this one is in the form of a sea grotto.

Of course, the question naturally arises: what about the smell? After all, if you look closely, in each crypt there are coffins, the doors of the crypts are forged bars with or without glass... There must be a smell! In fact, of course, there is no corpse smell in the cemetery. The secret is in the design of the coffin - it is made of metal and hermetically sealed. And it is simply lined with wood on the outside.

Those coffins that are visible in the crypts are just the tip of the iceberg. The main one is in the basement. There is usually a small staircase leading into it. Let's take a look into one of the basements under this crypt. Only one basement floor is visible here, there is another one below it, and sometimes there are three floors down. Thus, entire generations lie in these crypts. And there is still a lot of space there.

Each crypt belongs to a specific family. And usually it is not customary to write on the crypt the names of those who are buried there. Write only the name of the head of the family, for example: Julian Garcia and family. They usually don’t write any dates, and it’s not customary to post photographs of the deceased.

This is how you can come and in one fell swoop visit not only grandparents, but also great- and even great-great-grandfathers... But Argentines VERY rarely visit cemeteries. The entire mission of installing flowers, caring for, cleaning and maintaining the crypts is given to the cemetery servants. The owners simply pay them money for it.

There are crypts without any information at all. Ida, that's all! What kind of Ida, what kind of Ida? I walked under Ida for a couple of years and did not know about its existence until one tourist noticed it by accidentally looking up.

Skull and crossbones are quite common in crypts. This does not mean that a pirate is buried here, and this is not someone's inappropriate joke. This is Catholicism. Religion dictates that they decorate the crypts this way.

By the way, here is another secret of this cemetery: cobwebs and, accordingly, spiders here great amount(at least look at the photographs). But there are no flies! What do spiders eat?

There are special excursions around this cemetery. Spanish. And the guides tell stories that match this cemetery: not boring and scientific, but exciting and fascinating - like Latin American TV series. For example: “...this rich gentleman quarreled with his wife and they did not speak for 30 years. That's why tombstone They were given it with humor. On the most luxurious sculptural composition they sit with their backs to each other..."

Maxim Lemos also has it true stories about some of the guests of this cemetery.

For example, one 19-year-old girl was buried in the family crypt. But after a while, it seemed to visitors that indistinct sounds were coming from the depths of the crypt. It was not clear whether the sounds were coming from the crypt or somewhere else. Just in case, the fireman notified the relatives, and it was decided to open the coffin with the girl.

They opened her up and found her dead, but in an unnatural position, and the coffin lid was scratched, and there was wood under her nails. It turned out that the girl was buried alive. And then the girl’s parents ordered to erect a monument to the girl in the form of her emerging from the crypt. And since then, at the cemetery they began to use a method that was fashionable in Europe at that time for such cases. A rope was tied to the corpse's hand, which led out and was attached to a bell. So that he could notify everyone that he is alive.

But this crypt is also remarkable. A young Argentinean woman, the daughter of very rich parents, is buried here. Italian origin. She died during her honeymoon. The hotel in Austria where she was staying with her husband was covered in an avalanche. She was 26 years old, and this happened in 1970. And Liliana’s parents (that was the girl’s name) ordered this luxurious crypt in gothic style. In those days, it was still possible to buy land and build new crypts. At the foot, in Italian, is a verse from a father dedicated to the death of his daughter. It keeps repeating “why?” A few years later, when the monument was ready, the girl’s beloved dog died. And she was also buried in this crypt, and the sculptor added a dog to the girl.

The guides, who needed to keep their audience occupied with something, began to say that if you rub the dog’s nose, good luck will surely overtake you. People believe and tinder...

The husband's body was never found in that Austrian hotel. And since then, the same man appears at the cemetery, who regularly, for many years, brings flowers to Liliana’s grave...

And this is the highest crypt in the cemetery. And its owners managed to impress everyone not only in height, but also in their sense of humor, combining two incompatible religious symbols on this crypt: the Jewish seven-branched candlestick and the Christian cross.

But this is the second largest and first most expensive crypt. It is made from the most expensive materials. Suffice it to say that the inside of the dome roof is lined with real gold. The crypt is huge, and its underground rooms are even larger.

And Federico Leloir, Argentinean, is buried here Nobel laureate in biochemistry. He died in 1987. But such a luxurious crypt was not built for the Nobel Prize (the scientist spent it on research), and it was built much earlier. And in general he lived extremely modestly. This crypt is a family one; Federico had wealthy relatives who were involved in the insurance business.

Several Argentine presidents are buried here. Here is President Quintana, depicted lying down.

And this is another president, Julio Argentino Roca. Just 50 years before Hitler, he announced without unnecessary sentiment that it was necessary to free southern lands and annex them to Argentina. “Liberate” meant destroying all the local Indians. This was done. The Indians were destroyed, some of them were transported to central Argentina as slaves, and their lands, Patagonia, were annexed to Argentina. Since then Roka has become national hero and is considered to be so to this day. There are streets named after him, his portraits are printed on the most popular 100-peso bill. Those were the times, and what is now called genocide, racism and Nazism was the norm of life 100 years ago.

Some crypts are in a very abandoned state. For example, if all relatives died. But you still can’t take the crypt: private property. Destroying or touching is also prohibited. But when it becomes clear that the owners of the crypt will no longer show up (for example, if it has been abandoned for 15 years), the cemetery administration takes a fancy to such crypts as warehouses for building materials and other equipment.

In one of the places of the cemetery, the caretakers set up a small household plot.

Among the crypts there was a toilet modestly hidden.

The cemetery is famous for its cats.

In our culture, it is customary to bring plastic wreaths with the inscriptions “from friends” and “from colleagues” at funerals. Then, after a few days, these wreaths are taken to a landfill. This is impractical! Therefore, in Argentina, wreaths are made of iron and welded to the crypt forever. Anyone can mark a friend's grave. And if the person was important, then there are many iron wreaths and memorial tablets on his crypt.

All crypts in the cemetery are private. And the owners can dispose of it as they please. They can also bury friends there. They can rent it out or even sell it. Prices for crypts in this cemetery start from 50 thousand dollars for the most modest one and can reach 300-500 thousand for a more respectable one. That is, prices are comparable to prices for apartments in Buenos Aires: here a 2-3-room apartment costs from 50-200 thousand dollars and up to 500 thousand in the most prestigious area. For example, here - the crypt is for sale.

Until 2003, it was still possible to purchase land on Recoleta and build a new crypt. Since 2003, the cemetery has become an architectural monument of not only Argentine but also world significance. Not only are any buildings prohibited here, it is also prohibited to modify or rebuild ready-made crypts. You can only restore old ones, and even then after a lot of permits and solely for the purpose of giving them their original appearance.

Some crypts and tombstones are being restored. For example, this one. True, this is being done with the Argentine working rhythm, there is a canopy, the restorers have not been seen for 2 months.

The Recoleta area itself is very prestigious. And the residents of these houses (across the road from the cemetery) are not at all bothered by the fact that their windows overlook the cemetery. On the contrary, people consider themselves chosen by fate - well, how can they live in Recoleta!

However, Maxim Lemox himself believes that Recoleta is “a monument to wild, unusual funeral traditions for us and a competition of inappropriate show-offs: “who is cooler and richer” and “who has more marble, the tombstone is higher, and the monument is more exclusive and larger.”

A high school student from Novy Urengoy, who, speaking in the Bundestag, said that not all German soldiers wanted to fight, was accused in Russia of... justifying Nazism. And soon after this, the FSB sent a request to the mayor’s office of Novy Urengoy about... the schoolboy’s Ukrainian roots

On November 19, Germany celebrated the Day of Mourning - the whole country remembered the victims of wars and state violence. One of the high-profile events this time was the performance in the Bundestag of Russian and German schoolchildren, who jointly studied the biographies of the victims of the Second World War. Russia was represented by students from Novy Urengoy gymnasium No. 1, which has long practiced the exchange of student delegations with German schools, and Germany by gymnasium students from the city of Kassel.

Children read reports from the Bundestag rostrum about the fate of specific people. The Germans spoke about Red Army officer Ivan Gusev, who fell ill with tuberculosis in Nazi captivity and was released in 1945, and about 17-year-old Nadezhda Truvanova from Kirovograd, who was taken to work in Germany, where she died.

*Schoolchildren from Russia spoke in the Bundestag about German soldiers who died or went missing during World War II

The Russians told about German soldiers who died or went missing at the front. Thus, Nikolai Desyatnichenko spoke about the fate of the participant Battle of Stalingrad Georg Johann Rau - one of the 250 thousand German soldiers who were then surrounded. Rau ended up in a Soviet prisoner of war camp. His family only learned last year that he died at 21.

Desyatnichenko admitted to the audience that the story of Georg Johann Rau touched him so much that he even visited Kopeisk in the Chelyabinsk region, not far from which there is a mass grave site for Wehrmacht soldiers: “I saw the graves of innocent people who died, many of whom wanted to live peacefully and did not want to fight. They experienced incredible hardships during the war. My great-grandfather, a war participant who was seriously wounded there, told me about this.”

Desyatnichenko concluded his report with a quote from Otto von Bismarck: “Anyone who has looked into the glassy eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think twice before starting a war,” and added on his own: “I sincerely hope that the whole world will prevail common sense and the world will never see war again.”

*Nikolai Desyatnichenko

It would seem that this is the speech of a thinking smart person young man, trying to understand the history of his country, which has a lot of blank spots. However - once again! - it turned out that Russians do not want to know the truth at all: neither about the cost of the Victory, nor about the fact that Stalin and Hitler unleashed the Second world war, nor about how this country treated the victors. Everything that happened after the trip in the “country that defeated fascism” suggests precisely this idea.

At first, Russian media wrote that the schoolboy “repented” for the dead German soldiers. Then they started harassing him on social networks. After a while, complaints began to pour in to the prosecutor's office, the Russian presidential administration and the FSB.

*The recent neo-Nazi march in St. Petersburg was swallowed by Russians who took up arms against a high school student from Novy Urengoy in silence

It got to the point of insults and demands to be “thrown out of the country,” statements that he “can no longer live peacefully in Russia,” and calls to be beaten for “rehabilitating Nazi criminals.”

A Deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Elena Kukushkina sent requests to the regional education department, the prosecutor's office and the gymnasium with a demand to check the student's speech for signs of justification of Nazism (for this, according to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, punishment is imposed). “I’m interested in the teachers who put this information into his mouth, where the emphasis is incorrectly placed”, said the deputy.

Next - continuous propaganda from the times of the USSR: “German soldiers did not fight, they attacked our country and occupied it. If we continue to place emphasis in this way, we will reach the point where we ourselves propose to reconsider the results of the Second World War. And then we will talk about the integrity of Russia as a state. “You cannot equate Hitler’s Germany with the USSR, which liberated the whole world from fascism.”

We must pay tribute Mayor of Novy Urengoy Ivan Kostogriz— he stood up for the teenager: “The student shared his discoveries that not all Germans wanted to fight, many just wanted to live peacefully. This should in no way be regarded as the boy’s attitude towards fascism. His speech, using the example of the story of this German soldier, calls for a peaceful existence throughout the entire earth and rejection of war, bloodshed, fascism, suffering and violence as such.” The gymnasium also said that “the whole school is perplexed by the discussion of the report.”

“There were traitors, there are traitors! Desyatnichenko Nikolay, you betrayed the memory of your grandfathers! It’s a pity that your parents were not captured by the Nazis, and subsequently to Auschwitz.”

“About Kolya from Urengoy. For 70 years, has at least one boy, Hans from Munich, been to Russia with repentance? No? Then into the firebox. The Russians have nothing to apologize for. They are the ones who should ask for our forgiveness. Dot".

“And the boy Kolenka doesn’t want to repeat this speech in front of people on Immortal Regiment in Stalingrad?!”

“Disgrace! The boy realized early on that it was profitable to water his country in the West.”

“I wonder if the boy who spoke in the Bundestag has already returned to the Russian Federation? I am tormented by vague doubts that he will not return now, he will ask for water. refuge and will bark even more at home.”

“I ask you to give a legal assessment of the actions of Nikolai Desyatnichenko in relation to parts 1 and 2 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Rehabilitation of Nazism.” I ask you to conduct an inspection of the gymnasium, including the school curriculum in the subject “History”, in relation to parts 1 and 2 of Article 354.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. I propose to remove the mayor of Novy Urengoy from his post and send him in disgrace, without a pension, to Anadyr to teach the history of his homeland with this schoolboy.”

“It is desirable for the Minister of Education of the Russian Federation to introduce mandatory requirements for the preparation of texts for schoolchildren’s speeches at any performances and any events in the Russian Federation and abroad. Appoint the school director and class teacher schoolboy. Such a shame as happened in Germany has not happened for a long time. What an agreement this Kolya has made. Shame on his parents and the entire school he attends. What do they teach children in this school in history lessons? Why is the city mayor not responsible for this speech? Parents should also be called to the prosecutor’s office to testify about this speech!”

“Does this Kolya even know how many Soviet citizens and Red Army soldiers were captured and in what conditions they lived? His knowledge is negligible, and his performance is a provocation. This cannot be ignored by the Russian Prosecutor’s Office and the Russian Minister of Education.”

Some responded ironically: “Well, we’ll bomb not Voronezh, but Novy Urengoy, right?”

Russian journalist Alexander Sotnik wrote about this surrealism on Facebook: “Everything in this story with a boy from Novy Urengoy, who spoke from the rostrum of the Bundestag and was subjected to furious persecution, is indicative. Solid symbolism.

That very case when the words of Christ “let the dead bury their dead” became a terrible reality.

Our stubborn zombies dug up the “victor grandfathers” and staged a magnificent funeral, stretching the procession over tens of thousands of kilometers and years of time. They come with coffins and wreaths, and do not allow living passage: they bite, strangle, gnaw...

On their way they came across a living, good boy. They devoured it. Gnawed to the bones. And, growling, they trudged on with “love for the coffins of their fathers”...

Crazy propaganda has turned the country into a crypt, inside of which there are continuous funerals, developing into some kind of devilish orgies. Run, boy, run..."

“The young man from Urengoy expressed, in essence, a completely obvious thought, wrote on social networks Victor Shenderovich. —Even banal. Twice two makes four, the Volga flows into the Caspian Sea, criminal armies consist of forced soldiers who pay with their lives for the ambitions of the leaders... What a monstrous poisonous silo must be pumped into people’s brains in order to make a guy a traitor to the Motherland! It’s a misfortune for a Motherland where a conscientious boy, capable of so acutely feeling someone else’s misfortune, will be forced to make excuses. May God help him endure this and come out of this situation strong and not broken.”

Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko wrote very poignantly: “A country that is destroying its youth with its own hands... Its future... Its best, the brightest that they have... This is the bottom. This is the end of the population. This is the end of everything human in man. And this is just the beginning of the process. Now Peskov is still speaking out in support. And then they will start planting. Amendments are already beginning to be pushed through. And then - and shoot. I hope this boy is bright, kind, good, honest, open... I hope he will endure it. I hope he doesn’t burn in a tank during the next war.

I hope he doesn’t kill anyone in the next war... This country is crippling its children. She crippled her sixty years ago, she still cripples her now. And first of all, those who do not fit into the new paradigm. Who is even an inch higher than a bottle of Zhiguli wine? The smartest, the purest, the brightest.

Bullying a child is one of the most perverse pathologies that human nature can reach.

These have arrived. Evacuate your children from Mordor, my brothers. Don't let them get mutilated. This is your responsibility."

This text is one of them. What kind of body lies in the mausoleum? Is it Lenin's real body, a doll, or a combination of both? About how, at the suggestion of the party leadership Soviet leader led double life after death, said anthropologist and professor at the “Enlightener” Prize lecture at the VDNKh Summer Cinema-Lecture Hall University of California in Berkeley (USA) Alexey Yurchak. Lenta.ru publishes fragments of his speech.

Rumors that Lenin’s body was not real began to circulate in the first days after the leader’s death. A few months later, in the late summer of 1924, the Mausoleum opened to its first visitors, and Moscow again began to say that a wax mummy lay there. The rumors did not stop even in the late 1930s, when their repetition was especially dangerous. In a written denunciation to the GPU, a young Muscovite claimed that her friend, in a private conversation, stated that there was only a wax doll in the Mausoleum.

In the early years this was repeated in the foreign press. To dispel rumors, in the mid-1930s the party leadership invited representatives Western media to the mausoleum. American journalist Louis Fisher wrote how in their presence Boris Zbarsky, who, together with Vladimir Vorobyov, were the first to embalm Lenin’s body, opened a hermetically sealed glass sarcophagus, took the leader by the nose and turned his head left and right to show that this was not a wax figure.

23 percent

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, rumors that Lenin's body was an artificial replica resumed. In response to them, Ilya Zbarsky, the son of the first embalmer, wrote: “I worked in the mausoleum for 18 years, and I know for sure that Lenin’s body is preserved in excellent condition. All kinds of rumors and fiction about an artificial doll and the fact that only the face and hands have been preserved from the body have nothing to do with reality.”

However, Zbarsky's statement did not stop the spread of rumors. In the late 90s, newspapers published versions of the existence of several bodies of Lenin’s doubles, which from time to time replace the body of the leader. In response to this, Professor Yuri Romakov, a leading expert at the laboratory, explained in an interview with Ekho Moskvy that the body in the mausoleum is Lenin’s real body, is in excellent shape and does not need to be replaced.

In 2008, Vladimir Medinsky, then still a State Duma deputy, said that the leader’s body cannot be considered real, but for a different reason: “Do not be deceived by the illusion that what lies in the mausoleum is Lenin. There's only 10 percent of his real body left there." The weekly magazine “Vlast” decided to check this figure. During the autopsy and subsequent embalming, Lenin's body was removed internal organs and fluids that were replaced with embalming solutions. Having counted the amount of material removed, Vlast came to the conclusion that Deputy Medinsky was somewhat mistaken. The Mausoleum contains not 10 percent of Lenin’s body, but 23.

Two bodies

If we take a closer look at the material composition of Lenin's body, it turns out that statements about its inauthenticity have a real basis. It all depends on how you define it. For the scientists of the Lenin laboratory, who have been maintaining this body for 92 years, it has always been important to preserve its dynamic form - that is, physical appearance, weight, color, skin elasticity, joint flexibility. Even today, the joints in Lenin's body bend, the torso and neck rotate. It did not harden, did not turn into a dried mummy, so calling it a mummy, as is constantly done in the media, is wrong.

In order to maintain this body in a flexible state, it has been subjected to unique procedures over the years, as a result of which biological materials are replaced with artificial ones. This process goes slowly, gradually. On the one hand, at the level of dynamic form, the body is certainly real, on the other hand, at the level of the biomaterials it consists of, it is rather a copy - it all depends on the point of view.

IN Soviet years a special commission consisting of party leaders, doctors and biologists periodically checked the condition of Lenin's body. They studied spots and wrinkles on its surface, the water balance of internal tissues, the elasticity of the skin, chemical composition fluids, joint flexibility. Tissues were processed, fluids were replaced with new ones, wrinkles were smoothed out, calcium content in the bones was replenished.

From the point of view of these commissions, Lenin's body condition even gradually improved. But regular visitors They always saw him motionless, frozen for centuries, in a glass sarcophagus, dressed in a dark suit. Of the open areas, visitors see only the hands and head. No one, except the party leadership and a small group of scientists, saw other parts of Lenin's body, never heard of their condition or the scientific procedures to which the body was subjected.

It exists, as it were, in two modes of vision. The political leadership and close specialists have always seen one body, and ordinary citizens - another. The political role that the body played in Soviet history, perhaps goes far beyond a simple propaganda symbol, which was supposedly needed in order to mobilize masses to support the party and government.

Lenin and Leninism

It seems to me that over the years Lenin’s body began to fulfill another political task. To understand this, let's go back to the early 1920s. In the spring of 1922, Lenin felt sick and tired; at the insistence of the party leadership, he left for several months in Gorki, near Moscow.

Living there under the supervision of doctors, he continued to lead the party and come to meetings in Moscow. But in May 1922 he suffered a stroke, as a result of which he temporarily lost the ability to speak, read and write. The party leadership established strict control over information about the political situation in the country that could reach Lenin.

The new rules reflected not only a real concern for the leader’s health, but also a desire to neutralize a strong political rival. In June 1922, Central Committee Secretary Leonid Serebryakov complained in a letter to a friend that Dzerzhinsky and Smidovich were “guarding Lenin like two bulldogs,” not allowing anyone to come close to him or even enter the house where he lived.

Over the next year and a half, Lenin's condition worsened, briefly improved, and worsened again. In the spring of 1923, after the third blow, he almost completely lost the ability to communicate with others. Meanwhile, political rivalry within the party leadership increased sharply.

In this context, the leader did not disappear from the political arena of the country; his image changed, acquiring a completely new shade. The real Lenin, who continued to live in Gorki and write texts, was isolated from political life. Simultaneously in political language a new canonical image was created. Most of the mythological images of Lenin, which are well known to us from Soviet times, were created precisely during that period of his illness, several years before his death.

In early 1923, the term “Leninism” was introduced into the country’s public language. Soon, rituals of the oath of allegiance to Leninism appeared in party practice. In March 1923, the Institute of Leninism was established in Moscow. In the spring of 1923, Pravda called for any piece of paper on which something was written in Lenin’s hand to be handed over to this institution.

At the same time, what the leader actually thought, said and wrote in 1922-1923 was completely separated from his canonical image. Lenin as a political figure in the last years of his life found himself divided in two: one part of him was excluded from the political life of the country, and the second part was canonized. It was through these two processes of exclusion and canonization that the new doctrine of Leninism was created in the early 1920s.

Since then, every Soviet leader, from Stalin to Gorbachev, has been adjusting this doctrine, inventing his own version, introducing previously unknown Leninist works and introducing others, giving a new interpretation to known materials, quoting Lenin out of the original context, changing the meaning of his statements and facts of life.

In 1990, less than a year before the collapse Soviet state, The Central Committee of the CPSU recognized that all previous versions of Leninism contained a distortion of real Leninist thought. In December of the same year, a professor at the department of Marxism-Leninism wrote in the newspaper “Workers' Tribune”: “Our tragedy lies in the fact that we do not know Lenin. We have never read his work in the past and we do not do so now. For decades, we have perceived Lenin through intermediaries, interpreters, popularizers and other distorters.”

The historian complained that the Institute of Marxism-Leninism, the main authority on Lenin's legacy, for 70 years performed a special function, giving approval to the publication of those Leninist texts that corresponded to the currently accepted canons, no matter how far they were from the real ones words of the leader, changing or shortening other texts that did not correspond to these canons.

In his speech on the 120th anniversary of Lenin's birth in April 1990, Gorbachev declared: "Lenin remains with us as the greatest thinker of the 20th century." Then he added that it was necessary to rethink Lenin’s theoretical and political legacy, get rid of the distortion and canonization of Lenin’s conclusions, and proposed abandoning the term “Leninism.”

Death

Lenin died on January 21, 1924. At first there was no plan to preserve his body for centuries. Immediately after the leader’s death, professor of medicine Alexey Ivanovich Abrikosov performed an autopsy and then a temporary embalming procedure in order to preserve the body for 20 days while the public farewell took place.

During the autopsy and temporary embalming process, Abrikosov cut many arteries and large vessels. Subsequently, the professor said that if plans for long-term preservation of Lenin had existed at the time of his death, he would not have done this, since when embalming a body for a long time, these vessels are used to deliver embalming fluid to all parts of the body.

Then the body was exhibited for a public farewell in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions. Despite the exceptional cold winter, when the temperature remained below minus 28 for several months in a row, crowds of citizens flocked to the capital from all over the country to pay their last tribute to the leader.

Lenin's funeral was scheduled for January 27. Six days after his death, a wooden mausoleum was built on Red Square next to the graves of the revolutionaries, in which the leader was to be buried. On January 27, Lenin’s body was transferred there, but it was decided not to close the sarcophagus for a while - due to the ongoing procession of those wishing to say goodbye to the leader.

Every three days, the commission for organizing the funeral, consisting of party leaders and close doctors, checked the condition of the body. Due to the low temperature and thanks to high-quality temporary embalming by Abrikosov, no signs of decomposition appeared on the body - it could be left open.

The first obvious signs of decomposition appeared only two months later, in March. Thanks to the unexpectedly long period during which they were absent, the party leadership had the opportunity to delay the burial and simultaneously discuss his possible fate.

Lenin will live

At the endless meetings of the commissions to perpetuate the memory of Lenin, heated debates took place, and it was then that the proposal to preserve the body for a longer period won. At first, many in the party leadership considered this idea not only utopian from a scientific point of view, but also counter-revolutionary. For example, Trotsky, Bukharin and Voroshilov believed that the long-term preservation and public display of Lenin's body turns it into a semblance of religious relics and directly contradicts the materialist principles of Marxism. Bonch-Bruevich agreed that “it is not the body that is important, but the memorial”: Lenin should be buried in a mausoleum that fulfills this task.

But other members of the country's leadership - for example, Leonid Krasin - argued that if it was possible to preserve the body for another period, even if not forever, this would make sense. At the very least, this will allow the working people of the whole world to take part in a long farewell to the leader of the world proletariat.

The meeting of the commission for organizing the funeral on March 5, 1924 was decisive in Lenin’s fate. After another long discussion of possible options with medical scientists, most of whom expressed skepticism about the possibility of long-term preservation, members of the party leadership asked them to leave the room. The participants in the discussion differed in their opinions, and nothing was decided that day. More precisely, the solution was half-hearted: we’ll try to save it, but without the certainty that it is possible and necessary, and without promises that it will last forever.

At the end of March, it was decided to try an experimental method of embalming the body, proposed by Professor Vladimir Vorobyov from Kharkov and biologist-biochemist Boris Zbarsky. The procedure had no analogues, and neither Vorobiev nor Zbarsky were confident of its success. They worked for four months in a special laboratory created right inside the temporary mausoleum. They had to invent and adjust many procedures on the fly.

Lenin is alive

By the end of July 1924, they reported to the party leadership that the work had been completed. If the body was processed and embalmed according to their method, they said, there was a high likelihood that it would be preserved for quite a long time. When members of the commission asked how long they should expect, Vorobyov said: “I allow myself not to answer this question.”

On July 24, the Soviet press appeared Official statement, which reads: “Of course, neither we nor our comrades wanted to create from the remains of Vladimir Ilyich any relics through which we could popularize or preserve the memory of him. We gave and give greatest significance preserving the image of this wonderful leader for the younger generation and future generations.”

Photo: Keystone Pictures USA / ZUMA / Globallookpress.com

This statement by the commission revealed the same paradoxical attitude towards Lenin’s body that was present in numerous disputes about his fate. The way the party leaders and close scientists spoke about it when it became known that it would not decompose for some time is reminiscent of how the party leadership treated Lenin in recent months his life. At that time, the still living leader was excluded from political life and hidden in Gorki, near Moscow, and another, canonized Lenin appeared in the public language of the party press and speeches. In the discussions of the commission on organizing the funeral, we are faced with a similar dual attitude, when plans for the burial of the leader were discussed and at the same time plans for keeping him unburied, a closed crypt and public display.

This duality was reflected in the fact that for months, disputes and discussions of Lenin’s body were carried out simultaneously in two different commissions. The first was called the commission for organizing the funeral, and the second was the commission for preserving the body. Many party leaders took part in the work of both. The perception of Lenin among the party leadership was strange: as if there were two bodies in the mausoleum - an ordinary, gradually decomposing human corpse, and the physical embodiment of something greater, grandiose, different from Lenin and superior to him.

Although at the time of embalming these two bodies were still composed of the same biological matter, this state of affairs, as we already know, did not last long. The ambivalent attitude towards Lenin's body among the party leadership was reproduced in subsequent years.

Great Legitimator

In Soviet times, a political model arose that linked the principle of reproduction of sovereign power with the principle of doubling the leader’s body. It arose unexpectedly and unplanned - several conditions simply coincided: a long period of illness, when Lenin was simultaneously isolated from political life and canonized in the image of Leninism. Due to the cold of that winter, the body did not decompose, which made it possible to discuss its fate. It is also important to take into account the features of the socio-cultural organization of the new type of Leninist party - a unique political institution.

In the Soviet political system the culture of sovereign power resembled a mixture of two models: absolute monarchy and liberal democracy, where the role of the body is played absolute truth. Unlike a sovereign monarchy, no leader of the party or state after Lenin could take his place, located outside the political space. The truth in this system was expressed in the language of Leninism.

Any leader of the USSR, including Stalin, was obliged to appeal to Leninism to legitimize his power and could not question this doctrine or replace it with another truth. Each of them could lose the reins of power if it turned out that he was distorting Leninism. This thesis is illustrated by two of the most important phenomena of power in the Soviet system: the emergence of the exclusive personality cult of Stalin and his complete debunking after his death.

Now it becomes clear what role Lenin’s body played in the political system of the USSR. It functioned as the material embodiment of the heroic depersonalized subject, the Soviet sovereign. It was doubled, being a combination of mortal and immortal bodies. The way Lenin's body was maintained over the decades reflected the combination of these two themes. The mortal body of the sovereign was the corpse of a specific person, and the immortal body was a funerary doll, which was reproduced through special procedures and rituals.

The constant rumors that Lenin's body is just a copy are to some extent false and to some extent true. It is real, but it is constantly changing. Its biological materials are replaced with new ones, but as a result its form remains unchanged. This project emerged gradually - as part of a complex cosmology, the meaning of which for the party system, including its leadership, was never completely clear.

Work on Lenin's body was always carried out in an atmosphere of strict secrecy, behind closed doors. The same thing happened with Lenin’s texts, statements and biographical facts. Thanks to this approach, Leninism always looked like something fundamental, unchanging and eternal, while in reality it was imperceptibly changing, adjusted by the party leadership to the needs current moment. This doctrine, in this approach, looked like the source of party action, and not the product of party manipulation, and the same applied not only to the texts, but also to Lenin’s body.

Photo: CHROMORANGE / Bilderbox / Globallookpress.com

With the collapse of the Soviet system in 1991, Lenin's body found itself excluded from it. Post-Soviet Russian state did not close the mausoleum, but sharply reduced its funding. Over the past 25 years, no clear decision has been made about the fate of Lenin’s body. Today it remains in the mausoleum in public access, and the laboratory continues to work. The end of the Soviet system did not lead to the automatic destruction of this body, did not turn it into a frozen, decaying corpse, but at the same time it did not turn it into an artificial doll.