The local Youth Palace. During the Soviet Union Youth Palaces were established all over the country to offer a variety of workshops, ranging from visual or martial arts to science, et al.
































Vladimir Ilich Lenin was born a real Russian (i.e. with all the possible ethnic combinations for heritage) in this house on the 10th (22nd) April 1870 when the city was still called Simbirsk. His father was a school inspector and his mother was home-schooled, growing up to be a compassionate and independent thinker – qualities she transmitted to her children, whom she supported strongly and all of whom, except for those who died young, turned revolutionaries in an attempt to annihilate servitude and injustice in society. The family struggled the first years financially, sometimes moving several houses a year for lack of resources to pay rent. They finally settled in this house, where Lenin’s older brother, Alexander, experimented with chemistry and built a home laboratory behind the kitchen in order to make the explosives to execute the Tzar. The bomb didn’t detonate, though, and at the age of 17 he was killed by the Tzar’s government (yes, it’s also called execution) on 8th May 1887.

The family was devastated, particularly that they had lost the father, Ilya Ulyanov, the year before. Also, his sister Olga died at the age of 19.The workers of the memorial house of Lenin talked with love and respect about the family, keeping the memorial almost on a volunteer basis, hardly being paid or appreciated for the effort and time.

Lenin graduated from the local gymnasium, went on to study law, and even though he was expelled from the university for “radical” opinions, he went on to become the world’s most famous lawyer in history. There goes another piece of evidence that schooling and university degrees are not always the surest way to “success”.


















































































The spirit wanders