Moscow - The leasing of the birthplace of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin for wild parties with striptease acts has sparked fury among Russia's Communists, Izvestiya newspaper reported Friday.
The management of the Lenin Museum in the Volga region city of Ulyanovsk began renting the 12 000m2 house and museum complex to high-paying businessmen for festivities, claiming this was the only way to raise enough funds for its maintenance.
But an official investigation revealed that proceeds were going straight into the museum director's pocket, Izvestiya reported.
"Booze-ups in the Lenin Museum are an outrage - this goes beyond all bounds of decency," fumed regional Communist Party chairman Alexander Kruglikov, demanding action against the culprits.
The scandal deals a blow to local plans to build a kind of "Lenin Land" of historical sites relating to the leader of the 1917 Russian Revolution to boost tourism in the Ulyanovsk region, which situated 700 kilometres south-east of Moscow.
The regional governor already submitted a request to authorities in the capital to have Lenin's embalmed corpse relocated to his hometown from the mausoleum on Red Square.
The cadaver was placed on display in the crypt by the Kremlin wall after his death in 1924 and remains a popular tourist attraction despite calls for its removal.
Lenin was born Vladimir Ulyanov in 1870 in the city that now bears his name. The house of his birth was dismantled during the Communist era and rebuilt at another spot to serve as a memorial to the founder of the Soviet Union. - Sapa-dpa