Inside Nato’s ‘museum of shame’ where Lenin planned bloody revolution

John Kampfner unfurls the extraordinary history of the former Soviet workers’ hall in Finland – which has become a deep source of embarrassment and controversy to a nation that neighbours Russia

The Communist leader addresses servicemen at Red Square, Moscow, in 1919 (Getty)

Welcome to the most hated museum in Finland.” This is not the usual greeting from the director of a museum, but Kalle Kallio is facing an uphill battle to keep his in existence.

It is not surprising that a museum named after the leader of the Bolshevik revolution might not go down a treat in a country that has just joined Nato, but that is the lot of the Lenin Museum in Tampere.

Indeed, visitors to Finland’s third city might not even know it’s there. The local authorities fund it but they also seem embarrassed by it. Go onto the website of Visit Tampere and you’ll find information on the cathedral, the open-air saunas, the museum of labour, a spy museum – even a museum dedicated to the Moomins. Lenin barely gets a look-in.