Date: Sat, 11 Dec 1999 10:36:08 -0500
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: Anarchists Protest Atop Lenin Mausoleum


Looks like these young people understand which political philosophy is
in ascendance.

Anarchists Protest Atop Lenin Mausoleum

MOSCOW, Dec 10, 1999 -- 

Reuters

Anarchist protesters climbed onto the Lenin mausoleum on Moscow's Red
Square on Thursday, a rare demonstration at the holy of holies of the
former Soviet Union.

A Moscow police spokesman said five young protesters climbed onto the
squat, red marble building which has housed the mummified corpse of the
first Soviet leader, Vladimir Lenin, since 1924.

In an apparently pointless prank they climbed to the top of the building
to stand where Soviet leaders used to watch tanks, soldiers and missiles
parade across Red Square in annual commemoration of the Bolshevik
Revolution.

The protesters draped a white banner with the words "Against Everyone"
scrawled on it over the large "LENIN" inscription which fronts the
mausoleum before policemen hustled them away.

For an offence that once might have landed them in jail for several
years, Itar-Tass news agency quoted an official as saying the youngsters
would be charged with public mischief and fined just 30 rubles, or
around one U.S. dollar.

Russia's NTV television said the youngsters were radical anarchists and
showed pictures of them running across Red Square and making it to the
top of the mausoleum unhindered.

They stood there for several minutes before a police officer managed to
reach them and tear the banner out of their hands. Other police officers
seemed to react slowly to an incident which in the Soviet era would have
been severely punished.

Although the mausoleum is now as much a tourist attraction as a
political shrine, its place on Red Square is strongly defended by
Communists, who revere Lenin as the founder of the Soviet state.

President Boris Yeltsin and the head of the Russian Orthodox Church say
it should be removed and Lenin buried.

Lenin's embalmed corpse lies in a glass coffin in a chilly, black marble
basement hall through which hundreds of visitors still tramp every day.

They can file past and stare at the yellowish figure with a thin reddish
beard lying in a dark suit but are not allowed to stand for too long or
take photographs.

The mausoleum stands in the lee of the walls of the Kremlin and has
become as much a part of the Red Square scenery as the multi-colored
onion domes of St Basil's Cathedral or the ornate Tsarist-era facade of
the GUM department store.


http://www.russiatoday.com:80/news.php3?id=117495

-- 
Chuck0
http://flag.blackened.net/chuck0/home/

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