Vladimir Lenin Still Needs Bodyguards In Kiev, Ukraine

KIEV, Ukraine -- A nationalist last year took a sledgehammer to the marble face of Vladimir Lenin in Kiev, Ukraine. The Communist Party of Ukraine now guards the statue around the clock.Standing tall and distinguished, a marble Vladimir Lenin used to keep silent watch over downtown Kiev (Kyiv), Ukraine’s capital.

But last summer, a Ukrainian nationalist scaled the towering statue and took a sledgehammer to the famous Bolshevik’s face and hand.

The Communist Party of Ukraine gladly paid for its reconstruction, but now the CPU is the one keeping watch.

Today, some of its most diehard supporters guard Lenin around the clock in 12-hour shifts.

“We’re going to remain here for as long as it takes,” says Valeriy Tayinov during his day shift on the first anniversary of the attack. “The nationalists constantly cause trouble and raise all kinds of provocations.”

The communist legacy is a bitterly divisive topic. While the CPU is a scant presence politically – it represents only 6 percent of parliament – much of the older generation remembers the Soviet Union with some fondness: education and medical care were free and jobs were guaranteed.

Now, the all-powerful state apparatus has given way to a shaky free-market transition riddled with crony capitalism.

But Lenin also launched an experiment that cost millions of Ukrainian lives and blurred the country’s national identity, facts nationalists exploit to promote national consciousness.

Mr. Tayinov, who claims he receives no compensation for his duties, sits patiently guarding his dear comrade in its shadow, near a ramshackle red tent adorned with a hammer and sickle. “It’s not an easy job,” he says. “But I have some shade.”

Lenin and stalin impersonators in Moscow

Mummies must keep mum

Riot police on Wednesday detained some 30 people dressed as mummies, who attempted to gather on Moscow's Red Square calling for the burial of Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin, a police spokesman said.
On Wednesday Russia celebrates the 85th anniversary of Lenin's death. His embalmed body has been on display in a glass case in a mausoleum in Red Square since his death following a series of strokes in 1924. His continuing presence in the heart of Moscow has been an ongoing source of controversy since the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Another police source earlier said 25 people were detained.
"A group of 25 young people, carrying a cardboard coffin, were detained by police officers," a police source said, adding that the detainees were taken to a police station for questioning.
Some 50 young people wrapped from head to toe in white bandages and carrying coffins with Lenin's name were due to join a procession of thousands of communists who will lay wreaths at the mausoleum on Red Square.
"There will be no crowd standing and chanting slogans... The mummies will join the procession of communists," a member of the yet-unregistered organization, who identify themselves as Orthodox monarchists, said, promising that "the mummies will be quiet, just the way mummies should be."
The spokesman said the protestors had been detained on the grounds that the rally had not been sanctioned by Moscow authorities, but a spokesman for the protestors said anyone could join the communists' march as long as they did not disrupt public order.
An opinion poll has shown that two-thirds of Russians believe the embalmed body of the architect of the 1917 Russian Revolution should be removed from its mausoleum on Red Square and properly buried.
Demands to transfer the Russian communist leader's body to a regular cemetery have consistently been countered by Russian communists, who insist that the tomb on Red Square remain his final resting place. They marked this week's anniversary by demanding Lenin be decorated a ‘Hero of Russia', the state's highest honor. "Lenin was a very humble man, but we have no right to forget his services... Especially now, when the world capitalist system is collapsing," appealed communists from St Petersburg and Leningrad Region.

25 Detained for Planning Anti-Lenin Mummy Rally

Moscow police detained 25 people on Wednesday who had been planning to stage a protest to demand the removal of a mausoleum containing the embalmed body of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin from Red Square. Police closed Red Square ahead of the planned protest on the 85th anniversary of the death of Lenin. "They were trying to hold a rally that the authorities had not allowed," a police spokesman said. The group had intended to dress up as mummies and demonstrate outside the mausoleum with a cardboard coffin. Media reports described the group as Orthodox monarchists who want Lenin buried as an ordinary person. About 400 supporters of the Communist Party laid flowers Wednesday at Lenin's tomb. The small and quiet gathering, which got some desultory glances from skaters on Red Square's ice rink, was a sharp contrast to the massive demonstrations of fealty to Lenin that marked life in the Soviet era. Tribute participants said they believe that communism's time would come again. Lenin "goes into history as the creator of a new society that all mankind came to," said Valentin Vazhanian, a retired rear admiral in the Soviet Navy. Zyuganov told reporters on the frigid square that "the current [economic] crisis underlines the necessity of studying Lenin's ideas anew." Zyuganov vehemently opposed the notion of removing Lenin's tomb, arguing that it is part of the Red Square ensemble that has been recognized as a world cultural monument by UNESCO.

Nikolai II and Stalin top the list of famous Russians

An ongoing contest sponsored by Russia’s state-run Rossiya television channel has come back online after being temporarily suspended for technical reasons. Titled "Name of Russia: Historical Choice 2008", the competition asks ordinary Russians to vote for the most significant people in national history. So far, tsar Nikolai II stands in the lead, followed closely by Joseph Stalin.
Initially, some 500 politicians, public figures, spiritual leaders, scientists, artists, writers and other notables were put forward as candidates. Votes were then cast for the top 50 names on the contest’s website. So far, over 2.75 million votes have been recorded, although gauging the actual number of participants is difficult, since users may vote multiple times.
Starting in September, the top 12 “finalists” will be reviewed on the Rossiya channel. A final public vote will then take place in December.
An early lead was taken by Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, with some sources claiming that organized online flash-mobs propelled the communist leaders into the top positions. After two weeks in the lead, Stalin was overtaken by tsar Nikolai II on July 15th, after competing groups staged their own flash-mobs. Musician and actor Vladimir Vysotsky and Peter the Great round off the top five.
The project’s chief executive producer, Alexei Golikov, downplayed the significance of the contest. “This is not a referendum,” he told Interfax, “this is an entertainment project with no political component.”
Still, some groups were anxiously awaiting the results. The St. Petersburg branch of the Communist Party has pledged to appeal to the Moscow Patriarchate and ask the Stalin be canonized, should he take first place in the contest. Sergei Malinkovich, the leader of the branch, spoke with the British Times newspaper:
“If he wins, we will ask the Russian Orthodox Church to consider canonizing Stalin. Lenin was a Communist for the Church, but Stalin was a real national leader. For us, he is like Napoleon is to the French.”
The move may be little more than an empty gesture. Stalin, who ordered the demolition of hundreds of Orthodox churches, is an unlikely choice for canonization by the Church.
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