Goodbye Lenin: Finland removes statue of Russian revolutionary as country seeks to join Nato

Monument seen as offensive to memory of those killed in Soviet war

Lenin hid in Finland in 1917, fleeing the Russian government after it outlawed his Bolshevik party, before returning to help lead the revolution later that year (PA)

Finland has made the decision to move a controversial statue of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin from the streets to a museum.

While the statue in Kotka, southeast Finland, has often been vandalised, it has received heightened attention since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The monument was presented as a gift by Kotka’s twin city, Tallinn, in 1979, and was sculpted by Estonian artist Matti Varikin. Estonia was part of the USSR at the time.