Lenin was a mushroom is a highly influential televised hoax. It was first broadcast on 17 January 1991 on Leningrad Television. The hoax took the form of an interview on the television program The Fifth Wheel. In the interview Soviet musician Sergey Kuryokhin impersonating a historian, narrated his findings that Vladimir Lenin consumed large quantities of psychedelic mushrooms and eventually became a mushroom himself. The timing of the hoax played a large role in its success, coming as period when the ebbing of censorship in the Soviet Union led to many revelations about the country's history, often presented in sensational form. As a result, a number of 11.3 million audience members took the deadpan "interview" at face value, in spite of the absurd claims presented.