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Moscow (Third Rome) - October 31, 2007
I just went to the Lenin Mausoleum. Young Russian men in uniform stand
at attention inside, the symbols of the Russian Federation on their
shoulders seamlessly blending in with the Bolshevik surroundings that
radiate the glories of a once proud but now fallen empire. Exuberantly
futurist and rigidly angled, red flames licking the walls of the
capsulated solemnity that is the shrine where the Viking revolutionary
is laid to eternal rest. Like the pharaohs of yore, Lenin is a symbol of
might that transcends the yesterday as well as the here and now.
Transfixed in time, a vacuum in space, the Mausoleum does not exist
merely on the material plane. Visitors file past, eyeing the mighty
mover of mountains, asleep not dead, like Barbarossa beneath the
mountains. Lenin is no more a man. He has mutated, his mummy become a
shrouded promise of liberation. In awe, in the dim light of the crypt,
visitors pay their respects to one that always was and always will
be. Lightning strikes, and the moon (that wench!) is chased away by
storm clouds of disgust and relief. Appalled by the utter
insignificance of their own weightlessness, visitors clasp their hands,
praying for deliverance and retribution. What was lost will be
regained. What was soiled will be repurified. Lenin's hands are
immobile. The Viking revolutionary is in a meditative pose. What once
moved shall move again. The claws of the double-headed eagle, symbol of
the empire that swallowed the East, shall again dig deep into the flesh
of the lands complacent and guilty, drawing blood, hot as lava, to heal
through slaughter.
- Constantin von Hoffmeister
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