10. Lenin’s Mausoleum (Estimated Cost: $15 million)
Mao Zedong is not the only world’s leader who was embalmed. There are several of them and one of them is Vladimir Lenin of Russia. Lenin died in 1924. Since then, the Russian government has been spending around $200,000 every year to maintain his body.
His body is displayed inside his mausoleum in Red Square, Moscow. The mausoleum was first built of wood until it was altered in 1930 for better preservation. Three architects designed it altogether. They are Alexey Shchusev, Frantsuz, and Yakovlev.
The mausoleum was mostly built of marble, porphyry, and granite. The tomb was built of red stone mined from Shoksha village of Karelia, Russia. Lenin’s sarcophagus was first designed by Konstantin Melnikov. His current one, put in 1973, was designed by a sculptor, Nikolai Tomsky.
The whole building and its reconstructions are estimated to cost around $15 million. That excludes other millions spent on maintaining the body alone.
