Alexey Shchusev designed Lenin's Mausoleum on Red Square. The first wooden tomb was ready on January 27, 1924, the day Lenin's coffin was placed in it. A second wooden mausoleum, with a sarcophagus by Konstantin Melnikov, opened to the public on August 1, 1924. The stone mausoleum was completed in October 1930, after sixteen months of construction. Its design draws on ancient tombs, including the Step Pyramid and the Tomb of Cyrus the Great.
The cladding is red granite and black and gray labradorite, and the upper slab is red Karelian quartzite on granite columns. The outer volume is 5,800 cubic meters, and the whole weighs about 10,000 tonnes. It stands on the highest point of Red Square.
Lenin's body has been on display almost continuously, apart from its evacuation to Tyumen in October 1941. Foundation reconstruction began in 2012, and the mausoleum reopened on April 30, 2013. Entry is free, and photography is forbidden.
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