Pirogov Church-Mausoleum

Central Ukraine


The second-most famous embalmed corpse in the former Soviet Union (after Lenin in Moscow) rests in the basement of a chapel in the suburb of Pyrohove about 7km southwest of central Vinnytsya. Nikolai Pirogov was a Russian medical pioneer who invented a type of cast as well as a revolutionary anaesthesia technique. His wife had him embalmed and laid to rest here in 1881. Without question one of Ukraine's oddest sites.

Visiting the body requires a tour and you may have to wait around for a few minutes until a few more people show up. The body is said to be much better preserved than Lenin's younger corpse.


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