V. I. Lenin

12

To:   HIS MOTHER

December 5, 1895

I received a letter from Anyuta yesterday, Mother dearest,
in which she told me that you are thinking of going with
the
Ardashevs [2] to Kazan, and I hasten to write to you.

The Ardashevs intended leaving today. D.A. has suggested that I take on the business of proving one of his relatives’
right to an inheritance, although we have not yet come to a complete agreement.

Life goes on as usual. I am not very pleased with the room, first, because of the landlady’s fault-finding, and
second—it seems that the next room is separated from mine by only a thin partition, so that everything can be
heard and sometimes I have to run away from the balalaika
with which my neighbour amuses himself right in my ear.
Up to now, this has fortunately not happened very often.
He is out most of the time, and then the rooms are very
quiet.

I do not yet know whether I shall stay here for another
month. [3] I’ll see. In any case when the lease of my room
runs out at Christmas it will not be difficult to find another.

The weather is very fine here now and my new overcoat is just right for this
season. [1]

---
Notes:
[1]
The rest of the letter has been lost.— Ed .

[2]
D. A. and Y. N. Ardashev —maternal relatives of Lenin’s.

[3]
Three days later, during the night of December 8-9, 1895, Lenin
was arrested in connection with the case of the St. Petersburg
League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class.
He spent over fourteen months in solitary confinement in a remand
prison after which he was exiled to Siberia.