Moscow, Jun 14 (IANS/RIA Novosti): Almost half of Russians -- 48 percent -- agree that the body of the former leader Vladimir Lenin, who died 88 years ago, should be buried, according to a survey.

In the study conducted by Russian recruiting website Superjob.ru, 48 percent of the respondents said that Lenin's body should be removed from the mausoleum on Moscow's Red Square and buried at a cemetery, while 26 percent of those polled were against it.

The results came four days after newly-appointed Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky suggested burying Lenin's body and turning the Moscow mausoleum into a museum.

Medinsky told Ekho Moskvy radio station it was "absurd" that the Bolshevik revolutionary's embalmed body was still on public display next to the Kremlin walls.

The founder of the Soviet state has been in his tomb since his death in 1924.

According to the survey, young people under 24 were among those against Lenin's burial, while 10 percent of the respondents were undecided.

The debate about what to do with Lenin's body has been going on ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In 2011, the administration of then-President Dmitry Medvedev said the decision whether to remove Lenin's body rested with the nation's "political leadership".