Editing Red Square (section)

=== Lenin Mausoleum ===
{{main|Lenin's Mausoleum}}
[[File:Moscow LeninMausoleum 1547.JPG|thumb|Lenin's Mausoleum, as seen in front of the Kremlin]]
An important monument of the Soviet era is the Lenin Mausoleum, which is located in the western side of the square. It stands by the Kremlin wall at the height of the Senate Tower, almost exactly where the protective moat ran until the 18th century, and a tram line ran from 1909 to 1930. Inside the mausoleum, the lavishly embalmed corpse of Vladimir Lenin rests in an armoured glass sarcophagus. To this day, the mausoleum is open to visitors on certain days.

Today's building made of [[granite]] and [[labradorite]], was preceded by two provisional mausoleums made of [[oak]]. The first of these was erected in January 1924, a few days after Lenin's death, and had a simple cube shape at a height of three meters, a second temporary arrangement was set up in the spring of 1924. The current building was erected between 1929 and 1930. From the outside, it has the shape of a multi-tiered pyramid, which should underline the character of the mausoleum as a monumental burial place based on ancient models. The author of the design was the renowned architect [[Alexey Shchusev]], who also had the two previous mausoleums built.

From the completion of the mausoleum, and until the end of the Soviet Union, the mausoleum was considered a central attraction, and a place of worship in the socialist world. During the military parades and marches on Red Square, heads of state appeared from the central stand on the roof of the mausoleum until the mid-1990s. In 1953, the body of the deceased Lenin's successor Joseph Stalin was embalmed and laid out in the mausoleum. Eight years later, however, he was removed from the mausoleum in the course of the so-called [[de-Stalinization]], which began after the 20th Congress of the CPSU, and buried at the Kremlin wall.

Today the mausoleum still attracts numerous tourists, although mostly no longer motivated by the personality cult surrounding the revolutionary leader. Notwithstanding this, the further laying out of Lenin's remains in the mausoleum is controversial. Many celebrities, including the last Soviet head of state, [[Mikhail Gorbachev]], spoke out in favour of Lenin's burial.