Ghost of Lenin sighted in the Kremlin
Walking on his own

"The ghost of Vladimir Lenin was first seen at the Kremlin in the small
hours of October 19, 1923. The incident took place about three months
before the Bolshevist leader passed away. In fact, Lenin was gravely ill
at the time, he stayed within the confines of Gorki, his residence
outside Moscow," says Alexander Gorbovski, a historian and writer. "A
former courier of the Kremlin dispatch department told me the story. By
accident he eavesdropped on a telephone conversation. That night he
dropped by the guards' office for a cup of tea.

He heard a duty officer asking somebody on the phone: 'Can you tell me
why Lenin has arrived in the Kremlin on his own? I've just checked the
situation. There are no guards whatsoever. Okay then. I'll call Security
in the Gorki residence.' Then the courier heard the officer making
another call: 'Security at Gorki just confirmed Lenin hadn't left the
residence today. They say he's in Gorki. Yes, they're pretty certain',"
adds Gorbovski.

The strange incident greatly puzzled members of Lenin's entourage.
According to the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism, there is no such thing
as ghosts. However, there were many eyewitnesses of the appearance of
Lenin's "double" at Red Square. Those numerous eyewitnesses had no idea
that Lenin had been actually in Gorki at the time. So the authorities
had to make up an official report about Lenin's last visit to Moscow in
October 1923.

Strange visit
"I've no doubts that people in the Kremlin really saw the ghost of
Vladimir Lenin on that night," says Gorbovski. "There are too many
discrepancies in the memoirs by Nadezhda Krupskaya (Lenin's wife ? ed.
note) and those penned by Alexander Balmas, Lenin's personal bodyguard.
The above persons allegedly escorted Lenin during his visit to Moscow.
Krupskaya claims that Lenin spent a night in the Kremlin and got back to
Gorki on early morning of October 19th. According to Balmas, Lenin spent
the entire October 19th riding about the town. Balmas says Lenin also
visited the Agricultural Exhibition on that day. As regards Krupskaya's
account, I have a question.Why did Lenin make a trip to Moscow in the
first place? Did he really arrive in the Kremlin for walking about its
long corridors and taking a nap in his apartment? Balmas' version
doesn't hold water at all. The witnesses saw Lenin walking on his own,
without any guards in sight.
How come he had no guards alongside of him during that visit? By and
large, the visit seems completely purposeless," says Gorbovski.
Lenin's state of health had deteriorated by the fall of 1923. He
suffered from paralysis in his left arm and leg; it grew worse after his
illness struck back six months earlier. Following a course of treatment,
Lenin recovered a little; he could walk using a walking stick. On the
contrary, the "ghost" was reported to have moved swiftly and
energetically. According to Biographical Chronicles, Lenin "climbed the
stairs and visited his apartment and study," and "visited the Council of
People's Commissars before taking a stroll in the Kremlin's courtyard."
By the way, the above source claims that a "detachment of cadets greeted
Comrade Lenin as he walked across Red Square." Needless to say, there is
no mentioning of any walking stick in the account.

Footsteps in the night
"Two years ago I worked at the President's Archives located in the
Kremlin," says Sergei Kuleshov, a historian and colleague of
Gorbovski's. "I was having my lunch one day in a canteen. A friend of
mine introduced me to a gray-haired gentleman who sat at our table.
He was a KGB colonel in charge of security of a building hosting Lenin's
former apartment and study. We were making jokes with regard to the
supernatural as we ate our lunches. Suddenly, the KGB man stopped
smiling and told us a story about footsteps and other strange sounds
coming from Lenin's apartment at night. He said that that his colleagues
and he had repeatedly heard the footsteps and sounds that resembled
those produced by furniture being shuffled around the floor. The sounds
were coming from Lenin's study, which was locked and sealed, not to
mention a number of guards who watched it round the clock.

Sergei Filatov, chief of president's staff under Boris Yeltsin, also
heard the strange sounds that came from Lenin's study at midnight.
"The incidents took place in the summer of 1993," says Alexander Gamov,
Komsomolskaya Pravda columnist who published an article on the subject
in 2005. "Filatov's office was located at the second floor of the
presidential residence. The memorial apartment of Vladimir Lenin was
right above his office. Well, Filatov had no second thoughts about the
place at the beginning. He's said to have visited the apartment as a
tourist once or twice. He was burning the midnight oil when he heard the
creaking of floorboards above his head. According to him, it sounded as
if somebody was nervously pacing up and down the place. Filatov simply
ignored the sounds for the first time. He heard more creaking sounds
some time later as he worked until late at night.

He called Security and asked them what was going on in Lenin's museum at
night. The guards assured him that there was nobody upstairs since they
personally locked up and sealed the museum every day. 'You'd better have
another look around the place. It's in close proximity to Yeltsin's
office, can't you see?' said Filatov. The guards did as told and
conducted a thorough inspection of the apartment and study. Needless to
say, they found no one out there. Filatov stopped worrying or so it
seemed. But he also stopped staying up in his office. He apparently
preferred to be on the safe side should anything weird happen again,"
says Gamov.

"An acquaintance of mine, a student of the Moscow State University, has
recently seen the apparition of Lenin at Oktyabrskaya Square in Moscow,"
says Igor Vinokurov, cochairman of the Commission for the Study of the
Mysterious Phenomena. "The student claims he could clearly see Lenin
passing by, he could see his facial features, his trademark beard. The
student was thunderstruck and froze in the cobblestone. Apparently, the
ghost did not like being watched so he 'stepped back' into his monument
and disappeared," says Vinokurov.

They say that the ghosts of famous historical figures appear among the
living in troubled times. The ghost of Napoleon in red uniform with a
candle in his hand was often sighted in Paris on the eve of the 1848
French Revolution. Hopefully, the ghost of Lenin appears in our time
just to look around and get an idea of Communism-free reality.

Other ghosts seen in the Kremlin
The apparition of Ivan the Terrible seems to have a weakness for the
Kremlin. The ghost of the tyrant has been traditionally thought to be a
portentous sign to the authorities. The ghost was reported to be lit up
with the flames of ominous red color. The ghost made frequent
appearances in the Kremlin shortly after the death of Alexander III as
Nicholas II was yet to ascend the throne. Some of the letters by the
Empress Alexandra Fedorovna contain references to the ghost of Peter I,
which was seen wandering through the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg.
The ghost of Catherine II was regularly spotted in Petergof. The staffs
of the Russian State Archives often see the ghost of a woman in white
dress. The ghost appears near the shelves holding the documents
pertaining to the House of Romanov.

Komsomolskaya Pravda

Translated by Guerman Grachev
Pravda.ru