After Lenin’s death in 1924 the communist party members decided to have the body of the “Leader of the Great October revolution” embalmed and placed into a crystal sarcophagus inside a Mausoleum for public display despite the protests of Lenin’s relatives against this blasphemous form of burial. The present Lenin’s tomb built by architect A. Shchusev in 1930 represents three-level pyramid tiled with dark-red granite, porphyry and black labradorite. For over 50 years the Mausoleum was used as a tribune for the party leaders to greet the parades on the biggest holidays. In recent years there have been debates about removing Lenin's body from the tomb and burying it in the ground in keeping with Orthodox tradition.