Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov (Lenin) was born in the town of Simbirsk on the 22nd April 1870.  The town is situated on the river Volga and was later renamed Ulyanovsk. Lenin's origin family name was Uljanin, and the family originated from a Finno-Ugric village in Mordvia.  In 1895 Lenin founded the Fighting Alliance for the Liberation of the Working Class in the city of St. Petersburg.  In 1895-1900 Lenin was deported to Siberia. He shared a room with Oskari Engberg, a Finnish communist who was likewise deported to Siberia.  Lenin married Nadezhda Krupskaya. During 1900-05 it was Lenin's first period of exile from Russia.  In 1900 the first issue of the Iskra newspaper was published. Lenin edited this paper, and during his editorship the question of Finnish independence was covered in every issue.  In 1903 the representatives of the Russian Social Democratic Party gathered for a conference in London. The movement was split into the Bolsheviks and a more moderate minority fraction called the Mensheviks. Aleksanteri Schottman, a Finn, was the party representative for the city of St. Petersburg.  In 1905 the first attempted revolution in Russia. In December the Tampere Conference was organized in the very same premises where the Lenin Museum is nowadays situated.  In this conference Lenin met Stalin for the first time. Lenin also promised to further the Finnish autonomy. In 1907 Lenin took part in several Party conferences in Finland. A statue in the town of Kotka and a park in Helsinki commemorate these conferences. Lenin lived in secrecy in Oulunkylä, near Helsinki. When the situation grew worse, he fled abroad via the towns of Turku and Parainen in the west coast of Finland. A statue in Turku and a Lenin-hall in the museum of Parainen commemorate these events. In 1917 the second revolution in Russia occurred, and it was known as the February Revolution. The bourgeoisie and the working class unite to dethrone the tsar.  In April, 1917 Lenin returned to St. Petersburg via the Finnish towns of Tornio, Tampere and Riihimäki.  On November 7, 1917 The October Revolution occurred and Lenin assumed the leadership of the Soviet government. On December 31, 1917 the Soviet government recognized the independence of Finland and in March of 1918 the Red Treaty between the Socialist Republic of Finland and the Soviet Republic of Russia was signed. This agreement confirmed the Finnish independence and established the cordial relations between the two countries.  In August of 1918 Lenin survived an assassination attempt, but was wounded. During the period between1918-22 Lenin leads the Soviet government, but during 1922-24 Lenin's health was ailing. He lived in the village of Gorky, just outside Moscow.  On January 21, 1924 V.I. Lenin died of a stroke, caused by the hardening of the arteries in the brain.