In March 1917 Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, leader of the Bolshevik party, ended his exile in Switzerland. With the backing of the German authorities, then at war with Russia, he travelled by train across Germany, Sweden and Finland to return home. On 16 April, in Saint Petersburg, he took command of the revolution and set out for the Bolsheviks, in the April Theses, what was to be done. A hundred years later the maker travelled the same route.