Lit up by floodlights on a plateau above the Volga River, the last great museum to Vladimir Lenin glows like a beacon for lost Communist travelers.
The Lenin Memorial once was the ultimate destination for those making the pilgrimage to the Soviet founder's hometown. Nowadays, administrators have resorted to booking rock bands and setting up an exhibit of wax czars to lure visitors to the hallowed hall.A dozen cruise ships a day once called at Ulyanovsk. Today, there's one a week, mostly carrying curious foreigners, and annual attendance at the cavernous museum has plummeted from nearly a million people five years ago to 160,000.
In a city dug in against change - reforms champion Yegor Gaidar recently called it a "communist preserve" - museum director Valery Perfilov is the lonely and uneasy keeper of a fallen legend.
Worse than the falloff in visitors for Perfilov, a pleasant but sad-looking man who landed the job in 1984 when propagandist was still a shrewd career choice, government funding has vanished and prestige has turned to ridicule.
"The most unpleasant thing is that we are attacked by those formerly high officials who insisted on us being a brainwashing center," laments Perfilov, sitting under the once-obligatory portrait of Lenin in his office.
Vladymir Ilyich Lenin went from icon to castoff almost overnight with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The Lenin Memorial - officially the Historical and Cultural Center - is one of only two remaining Lenin museums in Russia, according to Perfilov. The other one, smaller, is in Leninsky Gory outside Moscow.
Endless rows of immaculate glass cases display writings, photographs, a report card (straight A's) and other memorabilia that lovingly tell the Bolshevik revolutionary's story. A mammoth sculpture of a seated Lenin stares out from a marble-tiled chamber at the heart of the memorial.
But suppressed truths are emerging.
New displays will soon tell of Lenin's Jewish roots and possible affair with French revolutionary Inessa Armand, Perfilov promised. Already, "enemies of the people" like Trotsky who were airbrushed out of photos have magically reappeared.
"We can no longer be a propaganda center," said the curator, uncomfortable in the role of revisionist historian. "Lenin was not a god, but he wasn't totally evil, either."
The city, which has taken over funding of the memorial, has proven as reluctant to let go of communism as of Lenin. Sneering at free-market reforms, it limits prices of meat, butter and other basic goods by issuing discount coupons.
The coupons help ensure local leaders' popularity with many voters but are economically "evil," said Natasha Kalinicheva, assistant economics professor at Ulyanovsk Pedagogical University.
Nonsense, said older colleague Sergei Sitin, a communist scholar who has taught history since Stalin's heyday.
"Ulyanovsk is not an island of communism, it's an island of common sense," he growled.
Some recent maps incorrectly list Simbirsk as the name of the grimy city 550 miles east of Moscow. But authorities are having none of the trend of returning to pre-revolutionary names, no more than they'd follow Moscow's lead in closing the Lenin museum.
Local schoolchildren still are herded to the preserved schoolhouse and desk where young Vladimir earned his model grades. Residents claim they give no thought to the once-Great One in these trying times, but the word "genius" crops up often in interviews with passers-by downtown.
"He would never have allowed Russia to fall as low as it is today," said Sergei Zverev, a 31-year-old engineer.
Outside the wood-paneled, two-story cottage where Lenin was born, guide Tamara Chizhikova, 61, stood idly waiting for tourists. She spoke wistfully of the days when special trains helped bring thousands of visitors a day.
"It's very sad how quiet it has become," she said, blinking back tears.
The annual cost to upkeep the Lenin legacy isn't disclosed, but the city justifies the investment in the past as an investment in its future. After all, he remains its most famous product.
"Lenin was a great historical figure - the greatest figure of the 20th century," said Perfilov. "He deserves to be remembered."