If you find your well-preserved remains on display in a transparent viewing case as part of some guided tour for dignitaries, you might just be one of these former heads of state.
Ho Chi Minh, the former prime minister and president of North Vietnam, wished to be cremated with his ashes buried in the north, center, and south of Vietnam. Instead, upon his death in 1969, his body was embalmed, with a little help from the Soviet Union, and encased in a crystal coffin.
Visitors can see “Uncle Ho” everyday at his mausoleum in Hanoi.
Mao Zedong, former leader of the People’s Republic of China, also had aspirations of cremation-bliss. But after his death in 1976, contrary to his wishes, his mortal coil was preserved and put on display as a public attraction.
The Mao mausoleum stands in the center of Tiananmen Square in Bejing
Kim Il-sung, the North Korea founder and former leader’s death in 1994 met with a shock wave of public grief, bordering on pandemonium, from North Korean citizens. As befitting a “Great Leader” his immortal shell was blanketed in red and enshrined inside a clear sarcophagus.
He is viewable to the public at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang. He is only available to foreign visitors via official government tours.
Ferdinand Marcos, former president of the Philippines, died in 1989 as an exile in Hawaii. His corpse was refused admittance into the Philippines until 2001; even then his burial “anywhere in the Philippines” was met with vehement protest.
His cadaver is interned in a glass-viewing casket inside a refrigerated crypt at the Marco’s family mausoleum in Batac until he can be buried with full military honors.
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