Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Monday it was too early to speak about the burial of Communist leader Vladimir Lenin.

Lenin's embalmed body has been on display in a mausoleum in Red Square since his death in 1924.

The father of the Bolshevik Revolution's continuing presence in the heart of Moscow has been an ongoing source of controversy since the break up of the Soviet Union.

"The Russian people will decide what to do with him when the time comes," Putin told the Valdai Club, an expert forum for international specialists on Russia, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

An opinion poll has shown that about two thirds of Russians believe that Lenin's corpse should be buried.

Demands to transfer the Bolshevik leader's body to a regular cemetery have consistently been countered by Russian communists, who insist that the tomb on Red Square remain his final resting place.

SOCHI, September 6 (RIA Novosti)