The Museum of Political History of Russia

This guide to the Museum of Political History of Russia in Saint Petersburg begins with the night ballerina Matilda Kshesinskaya fled her own art nouveau mansion, and the armed revolutionaries who moved into her drawing rooms weeks later. It follows Vladimir Lenin's arrival that April and the roughly ninety days he made the house his base, including a speech he gave inside the mansion's white hall. Look up at the balcony over Kronversky Avenue as you listen -- it plays its own part in what follows.