12.01.2022

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov wanted to move Vladimir Lenin’s body to Elista in 2005

In 2024, which marks the 100th centenary of the death of the founder of the USSR,

the Kremlin rejected plans to remove Vladimir Lenin from the mausoleum under the pretext that the question is not currently on the agenda. Disputes over the reburial of the world proletariat leader have been going on for more than a decade. They began right after the collapse of the Union and continue to this day according to the press secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov.
In October 2005, the first President of Kalmykia, sixth President of FIDE Kirsan Ilyumzhinov said at a press conference at the central office of Interfax in Moscow:
“I officially announced to the leader of the Russian Communist Party Gennady Zyuganov that if the question of the reburial of Lenin's body comes up, we are ready to allocate one million dollars to move the body and Mausoleum to Elista. He was our fellow countryman, and we do not forget them, we honour our history,” Ilyumzhinov noted. He told a curious detail related to the history of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century: "As it turned out, two of my fellow countrymen - Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin), whose grandmother was a Kalmyk, and the commander-in-chief of the White Army, Lavr Kornilov, whose father was also a Kalmyk were enemies…" 

Kirsan Ilyumzhinov told about another curious case: “In April 1993, a lot of my Moscow friends Democrats came to my inauguration. When they saw the monument to Lenin, they asked me to demolish it: “Let's bulldoze it. Tomorrow the people will wake up, and the old man is not there." Well, you know what drunken Democrats are. I told them that Lenin's father's mother was a Kalmyk. "Well, then let's drink to his old mommy!" they said."