The Tampere Lenin Museum

 

In this room in Tampere, Lenin and Stalin met for the first time. Yeah. What can I say? This is a historic site and hence worth seeing. Even if I don't like their autocratic, oppressive ways. Communism as implemented in Soviet Union caused misery and death. Stalin alone got tens of millions people killed and masses of the population sent to Gulags. His legacy unfortunately continues to drive today's autocratic despots, and allows these rulers to wage wars while having total control of their populations. 

Given this, in the above photo I'm dressed up and ready to give these gentlemen a ride out of Finland :-)

The museum is largely framed in the same historic-reporting-but-very-concerned style. At the door there's an appropriate reminder about the Ukrainian invasion:

And the leaders' statues are presented in their appropriate pose:

The building itself -- the worker's party/union building in Tampere center is very interesting. It is an early 1900s design for sure, but also has some ship- and church-like elements:

What was fun were the lockers for the visitors. They represent famous people who have visited the museum. Paavo Väyrynen - an infamous failed Finnish politician with an unhealthy desire to lean for Russian alignment) - for instance, launched one of his election campaigns here.

Read more urban exploration stories from theurbanexplorer.net. Read the full Planetskier series at planetskier.net, or all blog articles from Blogspot or TGR. Photos and text (c) 2023 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.