The funeral for Venezuela President Hugo Chavez was on Friday but his body will be preserved and put inside an ice tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace he ruled from for 14 years.

Vice President Nicolas Maduro announced Thursday that the leader will be embalmed "just like Lenin (and) Mao Zedong" and laid to rest in a glass casket at a military museum where generations of Venezuelans can visit.

"We have decided to prepare the body of our 'Comandante President,' to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong," Maduro said.

According to CNN, Chavez, who brought Venezuela to a social revolution, allied himself with other nations who were against the United States. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among the leaders to arrive in Caracas for the funeral.

"He was a dear friend of all nations worldwide," Ahmadinejad said to the crowd on Friday and also a Venezuelan state broadcast. "He was the emotional pillar for all the revolutionary and freedom-seeking people of the region and the world."

Chavez died at the age of 58 Tuesday after a long battle with cancer. He first announced his cancer diagnosis in June 2011, although the government never leaked information regarding his condition. Thousands of his supporters lined the streets Wednesday in a procession from the military hospital where he died to a military academy where Venezuelans could view him.

Maduro noted that the body would be held in a "crystal urn" at the Museum of the Revolution, a mile from Miraflores presidential palace.

The announcement followed two emotional days in which Chavez's supporters compared him to Jesus.

The United States does not have an ambassador in Venezuela but was represented at the funeral by U.S. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, and former Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts.