Locomotive H2-293

Steam locomotive that carried Lenin from Finland to Petrograd in April 1917 — now a monument outside St Petersburg's Finland Station.

The Finnish steam locomotive H2-293, built around 1900, stands today as a monument outside the Finland Station in St Petersburg. Its fame rests on a single moment: in April 1917, at the height of the Russian Revolution, it carried Vladimir Ilyich Lenin from Finland back to Petrograd — where he would deliver his famous April Theses days later. The locomotive itself is technically unremarkable, a standard Finnish freight type. But as a witness to one of the most consequential moments of the twentieth century, Soviet authorities had it declared a monument and placed on a plinth outside the station. For those interested in revolutionary history, it is a quiet but powerful symbol of the turning point of 1917.