My favourite museum in Tampere is the old Lenin Museum that got a facelift after the Soviet Union turned into Russia again in the 1990s.

For your first time in the museum, you should take part in a free (included in the ticket price) guided tour, in summer also in English, because it gives you so much more insight into this small exhibition.

Once, I attended an interactive guided tour where we visitors became part of the Soviet people who were commanded to prison camps in Siberia for random or no special reasons.

The museum is about our common history with Russians. Lenin himself really visited this place before the revolution and now this is the only still working museum of Lenin in western Europe. It tells the story of real historical events from today’s perspective and also has some humour around sad stories. I like the Estonian living room setting which reminds me of my childhood home here in Finland in the 1970s — just by the big old Soviet Union.

The little shop in the entrance of the museum is cute and has good books related to the theme. There are political & historical ones, but also children’s stories like ”Uncle Fedya, His Dog, and His Cat” written by Eduard Uspensky which I have bought in Finnish. There’s also old soviet style stuff and Russian souvenirs. This museum tells part of my history, too, and that’s why I find it so interesting.