The sun floods the square with bright light and caresses the black-red stone of the Mausoleum, plays on the bayonets of the sentries at a standstill at their posts at the entrance to the Mausoleum, illuminates the silver f1r trees, and guilds the ruby facets of the stars on the Kremlin towers. The last seconds. Marching in ceremonial stride, the sentries change. The ringing of the chimes resounds over the square. The doors of the Mausoleum open wide.
People enter and descend to the funeral hall.
The silence is disturbed only by the shuffle of feet. Lenin lies in the centre of the hall in the sarcophagus. Each visitor sees Lenin for 80 seconds. And he remembers these 80 seconds for the rest of his life. Moscow, January 1924.