Alexei Yurchak

Part of the problem was that during the autopsy, the pathologist had severed all Lenin's major blood vessels.

As Alexei Yurchak, professor of social anthropology at the University of California, later stated, "Later, Abrikosov would say that if he had known they would embalm the body, he wouldn't have done it.

The blood vascular system could have been used to deliver embalming chemicals to the tissue." Another problem was that while traditional embalming fluid, based on a mixture of formaldehyde, water, and alcohol known as formalin, worked well in the short term, over time, tissues preserved in this manner became stiff, discolored, and fragile.

About the only known method with any chance of preserving Lenin long term was freezing, and to this end, Leonard Krasin, the Minister of International Trade, set about acquiring the appropriate industrial refrigeration equipment from Germany.

Yeah.

Because these sorts of regimes kind of are fore- you know, Aleksei Yurchak, this Soviet historian, wrote one of the best books about the Soviet Union called Everything is Forever Until There's No M- Everything Was Forever Until It Was No More.

Right.

And it felt like it was forever, and suddenly it collapses and disintegrates and, you know, ev- you know, in retrospect we try to connect the dots, but while you're living through it, it feels like-