Almost half of Russians (48 percent) agree that the body of the former Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin, who died 88 years ago, should be buried, according to a survey conducted by the Russian recruiting website Superjob.ru.
Forty-eight percent of the respondents said that Lenin’s body should be removed from the mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square and buried at a cemetery, while only 26 percent of those polled were against it, the survey said.
The results come four days after the newly-appointed Culture Minister, Vladimir Medinsky, suggested burying Lenin’s body and turning the Moscow mausoleum into a museum.
Speaking to Ekho Moskvy radio, Medinsky said it was "absurd" that the Bolshevik revolutionary's embalmed body was still on public display next to the Kremlin walls.
The founder of the Soviet state has been in his tomb since his death in 1924.
According to the survey by the Superjob.ru, young people under 24 were among those against Lenin’s burial.
Ten percent of the respondents were undecided.
The debate about what to do with Lenin's body has been going on ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Last year, the administration of then-President Dmitry Medvedev said the decision whether to remove Lenin's body rested with the nation's "political leadership."
