HANOI: Vietnam has formed a special team of experts, including four Russian scientists, to help preserve the embalmed body of the Communist-ruled state’s founding leader, Ho Chi Minh. The special council has been created to assess the condition of Ho’s ageing corpse – first embalmed nearly 50 years ago – and will resume work next month.
The council is tasked with suggesting plans and scientific measures to preserve and protect the absolute safety of Chairman Ho Chi Minh’s body for the long term.
Several countries across the world, including China, North Korea and Vietnam, have embalmed their founding leaders with the help of the then Soviet Union’s “Lenin Lab”. The embalmed body of Vladimir Lenin was put on display in Moscow shortly after his death in 1924.
The late leader Ho Chi Minh, affectionately known as “Uncle Ho” in Vietnam, is preserved in a large Soviet-built mausoleum in the capital, Hanoi. Ho died in September 1969. He is displayed there within a glass coffin in the dark interior. The site attracts thousands of visitors a year.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un placed a wreath outside the mausoleum in March after the conclusion of his shortened summit with U.S. President Donald Trump. (Agencies)
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