Plaza Casa Lenin, Zürich — Visitor Guide & Things to Do Nearby

At Spiegelgasse 14 in Zurich's bohemian Niederdorf district, a modest apartment building bears a plaque commemorating one of history's most unlikely residents. Vladimir Lenin lived here with his wife Nadezhda Krupskaya from February 1916 until his departure for Russia in 1917, plotting what would become the Bolshevik Revolution from this unremarkable address. There is something deeply surreal about the fact that the architect of the Russian Revolution planned his world-changing moves from a rented flat in Zurich's most colorful neighborhood.

Switzerland's neutrality during World War I made it a haven for political exiles from across Europe, and Zurich's intellectual atmosphere attracted revolutionaries, artists, and thinkers in equal measure. Just down the street at Spiegelgasse 1, the Dadaist art movement was being born at the Cabaret Voltaire at almost exactly the same time, meaning that two of the 20th century's most disruptive forces, political revolution and artistic revolution, were gestating on the same tiny Zurich street.

A commemorative plaque marks the building today, but the apartment itself remains a private residence. The Niederdorf district's character as a haven for intellectuals, artists, and iconoclasts made it the perfect setting for a revolutionary exile to work in relative obscurity. Questo's Zurich adventures lead you down Spiegelgasse with the full story of how this quiet street briefly became one of the most historically consequential addresses in Europe.