At university, Ulyanov absorbed the writings of Marx and Engels. On graduating law from St Petersburg University in 1891, Lenin became a leader of a Marxist group, distributing revolutionary pamphlets to workers. He was carefully watched by the police, arrested in 1895, convicted of distributing propaganda and sentenced to 3 years in Siberia. Nadezhda Krupskaya, a young fellow traveller, joined him there and they married. Now called Lenin, the couple returned from Siberia and in 1906 chose exile in Western Europe.
Moving between Prague, London and Bern, publishing a radical newspaper and trying to organise an international Marxist movement, Lenin wrote how to transform Russia from a feudal society into a modern workers’ paradise. He argued that revolution would come from a coalition of peasants and factory workers, the proletariat.
![]()
The longest, coldest route imaginable for travelling from Zurich to St. Petersburg 1917
Zurich By early WW1 in Aug 1914, Lenin & Krupskaya were in Zurich, living off family money. They had no children.
A Deutsche Bahn regional train second-class compartment took Hammer across Germany to the Baltic port of Rostock. Stepping onto the deck on a cold, drizzly night, he passed the last jetty and headed into the open sea, bound north for Trelleborg Sweden. The sea was rougher when Lenin made the crossing aboard a Swedish ferry, but Lenin had stayed outside anyhow, joining others in revolutionary anthems.
SwedenPloughing through the blackness of the Baltic night, Hammer could imagine the excitement that Lenin felt as his ship moved homewards. After standing in the drizzle, Hammer headed to his spartan cabin to sleep, before the vessel docked in Sweden at 4:30 AM. From Trelleborg, he caught a train north to Stockholm, as Lenin did, riding past lush meadows and forests. Once in the Swedish capital, he followed in Lenin’s footsteps down the crowded main commercial street, to the elegant Hotel PUB. Swedish socialist friends brought Lenin here to be properly outfitted, before his arrival in Russia.
Across the canal to the Gamla Stan-Old Town is a cluster of medieval alleys on a small island, the site of another monument to Lenin’s Swedish stay. Situated in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art, it consists of a backdrop of black granite and a strip of cobblestones embedded with iron tram tracks. The work honours an iconic photo of Lenin in the Vasagatan, wearing a fedora and umbrella.
To the north, Haparanda is a lonely outpost in the Swedish Lapland tundra. It was once a thriving outpost for trade in minerals, fur and timber, and the main northern crossing point into Finland over the Torne River. Vestiges remain of the town’s rustic past: wood-shingle trading houses; Stadshotell Inn; and Handelsbank, a Victorian building with cupolas and a curving grey-slate roof.
Finland The horse-drawn sleds along the frozen Torne in Haparanda in April took the comrades across to Finland, which had been annexed by Czar Alexander I in 1809. They expected to be turned back at the border or perhaps detained, but they were warmly welcomed instead.
In Finland the white dome of the C18th Alatornio Church rose over a forest of birches. Inside the monumental neo-Classical brick railroad station, the waiting room has a bronze plaque mounted on a blue tile wall: “Here Lenin passed through Haparanda on April 15th 1917, on his way from exile in Switzerland to Petrograd in Russia.”
Hammer spent the night in bleak Kemi, walking in the freezing rain through the deserted streets to a concrete-block hotel near the waterfront. Then he took the train south to Tampere, a riverside city where Lenin briefly stopped on his way to Petrograd. Later the Finns turned the Workers’ Hall meeting room into a Lenin Museum, filling it with Lenin souvenirs.
![]()
Russia Hammer followed Lenin’s route to Petrograd: Kshesinskaya Mansion, an Art Nouveau villa. See the elegant block-long villa, interconnected structures built of stone and brick, featuring decorative metalwork and coloured tiles. This villa, including the office where Lenin worked daily until July 1917, was later declared a state museum.
At first Lenin and his wife lived with his sister and brother-in-law, director of a Petrograd marine insurance company, in Lenina St. The building’s curator showed the salon where Lenin once strategised with other revolutionaries. Hammer noted Lenin’s samovar, piano and a chess table with a secret compartment to hide materials from the police. [The Provisional Government had turned against the Bolsheviks in July and Lenin was moving between safe houses].
Smolny Institute, an early C19th school for rich girls became the staging ground of the October Revolution. In Oct 1917 Trotsky, chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, mobilised Red Guards, rebellious troops and sailors, and prepared them to seize power from the now disliked Provisional Government. On Oct 25 Lenin entered Smolny, and the Bolsheviks swept aside their socialist rivals in a coup d’état. Smolny was chosen by Lenin as Bolshevik Centre (now a Museum) and remained his home for several months, until the national government was moved to the Moscow Kremlin. ![]()
6 months after his return to Russia, Lenin was the ruler of his country. Hammer had followed the trajectory of a figure that changed the world, even after Lenin died in 1924.
In perfect time for the 100 year anniversary, Catherine Merridale wrote a fine book called Lenin on the Train, published by Metropolitan Books in 2017.
Press map for details
Zurich By early WW1 in Aug 1914, Lenin & Krupskaya were in Zurich, living off family money. They had no children.
The Altstadt is a cluster of medieval alleys that rise from the Limmat River. The Spiegelgasse, a narrow cobblestone lane, winds past the WW1 Cabaret Voltaire and enters a leafy square with a stone fountain. #14, a tall building with a gabled rooftop, has a commemorative German plaque saying that from Feb 1916 until Ap 1917, this was the home of “Lenin, leader of the Russian Revolution.”
When Lenin lived in the Altstadt, it was grotty. In Reminiscences of Lenin, Krupskaya described the dingy old house and smelly courtyard, overlooking a sausage factory. Luckily for Lenin, the owners were working-class people with a revolutionary value system, who condemned the imperialist war. Today their rundown rooming house is renovated.
When Lenin lived in the Altstadt, it was grotty. In Reminiscences of Lenin, Krupskaya described the dingy old house and smelly courtyard, overlooking a sausage factory. Luckily for Lenin, the owners were working-class people with a revolutionary value system, who condemned the imperialist war. Today their rundown rooming house is renovated.
Lenin spent his days writing tracts in Zurich’s Central Library and playing host to a stream of fellow exiles. Lenin and Krupskaya strolled along the Limmat whenever the library was close. Hammer followed Lenin’s route on the river’s east bank, gazing across the narrow waterway at Zurich’s landmark church and clocktower of St Peter. Famed for its unchanging Art Nouveau décor, the popular Café Odeon was one of Lenin’s favourite spots for reading newspapers.
![]()
In March 15th 1917, a young revolutionary raced up the stairs to the Lenins’ room, yelling “There’s a revolution in Russia!” Apparently enraged over food shortages, corruption and the disastrous war against the Central Powers, thousands of demonstrators had filled the streets of Petrograd, clashing with police; soldiers loyal to the czar switched their support to the protesters, forcing Nicholas II to abdicate. The family was placed under house arrest. The Russian Provisional Government had taken over, sharing power with the local Petrograd Soviet. Soviets/committees, made up of industrial workers and soldiers had begun to form across Russia.
Lenin made plans to return home. He promised to pull Russia out of the war and to eliminate private property. “The people need peace, the people need bread, the people need land. And the Provisional Government gives you war, hunger, no bread” he declared.
Lenin, joined by 29 other revolutionary exiles, waited for the train from Zurich to Russia in April 1917 where he planned to take power on behalf of the proletariat. Other Russians was enraged that the revolutionaries had arranged passage by negotiating with the German enemy.” Did German financiers secretly fund Lenin and his circle, at the very time the German government was in a brutal war against Russia? It didn't matter. Lenin travelled in a sealed train, one that moved internationally without its passengers being recognised as entering or leaving the nations they crossed. 100 years ago later, Joshua Hammer decided to retrace Lenin’s trip, curious to see how the great Bolshevik imprinted himself on Russia and the nations he passed through, on this epic train trip.
On board Lenin wrote by telegram to the Bolsheviks in the Petrograd Soviet, urging no compromise: “Our tactics: no support to the new government;...arming of the proletariat the sole guarantee; no rapprochement with other parties.”
The Lenins rented a one-room flat in this Zurich block in 1916-17
as the block appears today
In March 15th 1917, a young revolutionary raced up the stairs to the Lenins’ room, yelling “There’s a revolution in Russia!” Apparently enraged over food shortages, corruption and the disastrous war against the Central Powers, thousands of demonstrators had filled the streets of Petrograd, clashing with police; soldiers loyal to the czar switched their support to the protesters, forcing Nicholas II to abdicate. The family was placed under house arrest. The Russian Provisional Government had taken over, sharing power with the local Petrograd Soviet. Soviets/committees, made up of industrial workers and soldiers had begun to form across Russia.
Lenin made plans to return home. He promised to pull Russia out of the war and to eliminate private property. “The people need peace, the people need bread, the people need land. And the Provisional Government gives you war, hunger, no bread” he declared.
Lenin, joined by 29 other revolutionary exiles, waited for the train from Zurich to Russia in April 1917 where he planned to take power on behalf of the proletariat. Other Russians was enraged that the revolutionaries had arranged passage by negotiating with the German enemy.” Did German financiers secretly fund Lenin and his circle, at the very time the German government was in a brutal war against Russia? It didn't matter. Lenin travelled in a sealed train, one that moved internationally without its passengers being recognised as entering or leaving the nations they crossed. 100 years ago later, Joshua Hammer decided to retrace Lenin’s trip, curious to see how the great Bolshevik imprinted himself on Russia and the nations he passed through, on this epic train trip.
On board Lenin wrote by telegram to the Bolsheviks in the Petrograd Soviet, urging no compromise: “Our tactics: no support to the new government;...arming of the proletariat the sole guarantee; no rapprochement with other parties.”
A Deutsche Bahn regional train second-class compartment took Hammer across Germany to the Baltic port of Rostock. Stepping onto the deck on a cold, drizzly night, he passed the last jetty and headed into the open sea, bound north for Trelleborg Sweden. The sea was rougher when Lenin made the crossing aboard a Swedish ferry, but Lenin had stayed outside anyhow, joining others in revolutionary anthems.
SwedenPloughing through the blackness of the Baltic night, Hammer could imagine the excitement that Lenin felt as his ship moved homewards. After standing in the drizzle, Hammer headed to his spartan cabin to sleep, before the vessel docked in Sweden at 4:30 AM. From Trelleborg, he caught a train north to Stockholm, as Lenin did, riding past lush meadows and forests. Once in the Swedish capital, he followed in Lenin’s footsteps down the crowded main commercial street, to the elegant Hotel PUB. Swedish socialist friends brought Lenin here to be properly outfitted, before his arrival in Russia.
Across the canal to the Gamla Stan-Old Town is a cluster of medieval alleys on a small island, the site of another monument to Lenin’s Swedish stay. Situated in the courtyard of the Museum of Modern Art, it consists of a backdrop of black granite and a strip of cobblestones embedded with iron tram tracks. The work honours an iconic photo of Lenin in the Vasagatan, wearing a fedora and umbrella.
To the north, Haparanda is a lonely outpost in the Swedish Lapland tundra. It was once a thriving outpost for trade in minerals, fur and timber, and the main northern crossing point into Finland over the Torne River. Vestiges remain of the town’s rustic past: wood-shingle trading houses; Stadshotell Inn; and Handelsbank, a Victorian building with cupolas and a curving grey-slate roof.
Finland The horse-drawn sleds along the frozen Torne in Haparanda in April took the comrades across to Finland, which had been annexed by Czar Alexander I in 1809. They expected to be turned back at the border or perhaps detained, but they were warmly welcomed instead.
In Finland the white dome of the C18th Alatornio Church rose over a forest of birches. Inside the monumental neo-Classical brick railroad station, the waiting room has a bronze plaque mounted on a blue tile wall: “Here Lenin passed through Haparanda on April 15th 1917, on his way from exile in Switzerland to Petrograd in Russia.”
Hammer spent the night in bleak Kemi, walking in the freezing rain through the deserted streets to a concrete-block hotel near the waterfront. Then he took the train south to Tampere, a riverside city where Lenin briefly stopped on his way to Petrograd. Later the Finns turned the Workers’ Hall meeting room into a Lenin Museum, filling it with Lenin souvenirs.
Enthusiastic crowds welcomed Lenin to Finland Station in Petrograd, April 1917.
Painted by Mikhail Sokolov in 1930
Photo credit: The Economist
Photo credit: The Economist
As the train had crossed Scandinavia, watching the frozen ground endlessly flash by, Hammer “felt” Lenin, reading, dispatching messages to his comrades, looking out at the same vast skies and infinite horizon. In the morning Hammer boarded the Allegro high-speed train at Helsinki Central Station for the 3.5-hour final trip. He settled into the first-class car, sped past birch and pine forests and soon approached the Russian border. And finally into Finland Station, Petersburg.
Russia Hammer followed Lenin’s route to Petrograd: Kshesinskaya Mansion, an Art Nouveau villa. See the elegant block-long villa, interconnected structures built of stone and brick, featuring decorative metalwork and coloured tiles. This villa, including the office where Lenin worked daily until July 1917, was later declared a state museum.
At first Lenin and his wife lived with his sister and brother-in-law, director of a Petrograd marine insurance company, in Lenina St. The building’s curator showed the salon where Lenin once strategised with other revolutionaries. Hammer noted Lenin’s samovar, piano and a chess table with a secret compartment to hide materials from the police. [The Provisional Government had turned against the Bolsheviks in July and Lenin was moving between safe houses].
Smolny Institute, an early C19th school for rich girls became the staging ground of the October Revolution. In Oct 1917 Trotsky, chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, mobilised Red Guards, rebellious troops and sailors, and prepared them to seize power from the now disliked Provisional Government. On Oct 25 Lenin entered Smolny, and the Bolsheviks swept aside their socialist rivals in a coup d’état. Smolny was chosen by Lenin as Bolshevik Centre (now a Museum) and remained his home for several months, until the national government was moved to the Moscow Kremlin.
Smolny Institute today
with a Lenin sculpture in the foreground.
6 months after his return to Russia, Lenin was the ruler of his country. Hammer had followed the trajectory of a figure that changed the world, even after Lenin died in 1924.
In perfect time for the 100 year anniversary, Catherine Merridale wrote a fine book called Lenin on the Train, published by Metropolitan Books in 2017.