How the Mighty Have Fallen

While at Novodevichy Cemetery, we paid a visit to the grave of Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev was the Soviet leader from 1953 to 1964, succeeding the infamous Josef Stalin. He was known for his boorish behavior, which included his famous performance at the United Nations in 1960 when he removed his shoe and starting banging it on the table to interupt another speaker. He was also known for his famous and ambiguous comment, "We will bury you!" - directed at the U.S.

After returning from a vacation in 1964, he was removed by Leonid Brezhnev and other Communist Party bosses who felt he was embarrassing the Party by his erratic and boorish behavior. Brezhnev succeeded him as the Soviet leader. Khrushchev is the only Soviet leader to be denied burial in the Kremlin, thus his grave at Novodevichy Cemetery.

This is where the story gets good. I was visiting the cemetery with my friends and their 3 young boys. Their oldest, a 5 year old, was blowing off a bunch of steam. He was running around, climbing on statues, singing and dancing on marble slabs. So, it was with guilty pleasure that three adults watched a 5 year-old boy literally dancing on Khrushcev's grave. Who will bury whom?

(Photo used by permission of parents)