Even though Vladimir Lenin was born 152 years ago, he does not look a day over 53. And it's all because a team of scientists have spent 98 years turning him into a "living sculpture."
When the Russian communist revolutionary died of a stroke in 1924, millions flocked to Red Square to see the body of the man who had led the people in revolt, civil war, and then founded the Soviet Union.
And almost a century later, before the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin, millions were still turning up to see the man historians call "one of the most significant and influential figures of modern history" – who sparked and inspired communist revolutions in China, Cuba, Mongolia, Congo, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and El Salvador to name but a few.
In all this time, his appearance has barely changed. Even the arrangement, placing, and angle of his hands remain the same as when a million peasants lined up in the harsh winter of 1924 to see their hero lie in state.
This has been no easy task and has, at least at one point, caused developments in biomedical science just to figure out how to keep his cheeks rosy with revolution.
Mortician Caitlin Doughty, in a video on Vlad's "iconic corpse", describes how a "crack team" of Soviet scientists were assembled "to turn him into a sculpture of the body, that is constructed out of the body itself, or a living sculpture as it is called."
Using a series of embalming injections all over the revolutionary's body, Dr Vladimir Vorbiev and biochemist Boris Zbarsky spent four months working on Lenin's body, bathing it in formaldehyde and using wax to patch up areas beginning to decay.
These Soviet scientists constructed a skin-tight rubber suit that sits under his formal attire and circulates embalming solutions all over the non-visible parts of the body – all while visitors are walking past his "living sculpture."
Even then, every six months Lenin's body is drained of all its fluids, washed, and examined for mould and damage. It is then dunked repeatedly in baths of acid, formaldehyde, and other preservatives to keep it looking fresh for another half a year.
Any loose eyelids, drooping fingers, or sallow skin is replaced by a semi-secret compound designed to replicate the now 152-year-old communist's skin. This has raised questions about how much of Vladimir Lenin is even left.
The Scientific American's Jeremy Hsu has previously described how the scientists "resculpted Lenin's nose, face and other parts of the body to restore them to their original feel and appearance. [Using] A moldable material made of paraffin, glycerin and carotene has replaced much of the skin fat to maintain the original 'landscape' of the skin."
The same team at the so-called "Lenin Lab" also works to preserve the bodies of other communist revolutionaries, Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh, North Korea's Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.
With all this constant treatment, experts estimate that just 23 per cent of his original biological material remains, with all of his internal organs removed and much of his body replaced by artificial material.
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