Lenin's embalmed corpse edges nearer the exit of his Red Square mausoleum

Miriam Elder in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 January 2013 14.55 GMT

Just one in four Russians thinks the body of Vladimir Lenin should remain ensconced in its dark mausoleum on Red Square, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

The new findings have fuelled speculation that the Russian authorities may bury Lenin's body – a measure that remains highly politically charged 89 years after the Soviet leader's death.

The Levada Centre, an independent pollster, found that 25% of those polled believed Lenin should remain in his mausoleum – a record low since the organisation first began asking the question in 1997. Most of those polled – 34% – said Lenin should be buried in St Petersburg's Volkovsky cemetery, while 19% wanted to see him buried in the Kremlin walls, alongside other Soviet luminaries.

Lenin's body, displayed in a glass case inside a mausoleum just outside the Kremlin's walls, has become more of a tourist curio than the site of pilgrimage it was during Soviet times. Yet Russia's Communists, the country's second-biggest party after United Russia, as well as their mainly elderly supporters, have fiercely opposed any discussion of moving the body of a man they still revere.

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