Now on Sale: Lenin-Style Embalming : Russia: As followers celebrate 70th anniversary of the Communist leader’s death, his corpse’s curators hope to preserve profits in new open market.

Die-hard Communists laid wreaths and made speeches Friday to mark the 70th anniversary of I. Lenin’s death, but it was the Soviet founder’s embalmers who made the big news. If they were a little more commercially savvy, they could have billed it as a special anniversary offer.

Yes, it’s true: For between $250,000 and $300,000 you too can have your dear departed preserved for just about all eternity by the very formaldehyde wizards who have kept Lenin in viewing condition all these years.

And don’t worry about building a whole mausoleum to house the corpse; Russian suppliers can put together a nice home sarcophagus for easy viewing.

“Grandchildren will be able to look at their grandfather and say, ‘That was my granddad,’ without needing any portraits,” said Georgy Tishchenko, a scientist at the formerly top-secret Institute for Biological Structures that maintains Lenin’s corpse. And “the soul will have a place to return to after the resurrection.”

The institute was forced to seek commercial profits after the Russian government cut off funds for the Red Square mausoleum where Lenin’s body lies in state, the Itar-Tass news agency reported. So it got together with a Moscow firm called Ritual Service in November and recently began offering its embalming expertise on the consumer market.

It has no takers yet for the full Lenin Deluxe, officials say. They call the Lenin process “embalming with the goal of preserving for an indefinite period”--but the institute has begun performing lesser procedures on other corpses.

“I’m sure there will be orders, because there are people who are extraordinary and have the means,” Tishchenko said.

The initial procedure for a Lenin-style preservation takes six months, and then specialists need to spruce the body up every two years. Tishchenko refused to describe the embalmers’ methods, but it is known that the maintenance on Lenin includes twice-weekly swabbings of his hands and face with preserving fluids, and immersion every 18 months in embalming liquid.

His suit is also changed occasionally. (He is currently wearing a dark tie with white polka-dots.) Among other posthumous testimonials for the Russian methods are Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, Klement Gottwald of Czechoslovakia and a former Angolan leader. The institute missed out on Mao Tse-tung because of political differences at the time between the Soviet Union and China.

Institute workers told the Itar-Tass news agency they expect the orders for Lenin-style preservation to come mainly from Americans, from rich people who want to preserve themselves for the future.

Tishchenko said that unlike the freezing of bodies done in the United States, the Lenin process offers no hope for returning to life. But it does promise the longest-term preservation around, and in a form far better than that used for Egyptian mummies.

He said an elaborate mausoleum like Lenin’s, which keeps the corpse at 60.8 degrees Fahrenheit, is not needed; a small sarcophagus suffices, and Russia’s high-tech defense industry should be able to come up with one.