A good view was important to Lee Harvey Oswald
The Museum of the First Congress of the Russian Social Democratic workers party in front of Oswald’s old apartment building
Oswald travelled to Russia in 1959 and renounced his US citizenship, but his defection did not go quite the way he planned. Instead of a rewarding place at the Moscow University he was given a job as a factory lathe operator in Minsk, the capital of neighbouring Belarus. Housed in a large apartment building the only consolation was the view onto a shabby old railway workers cottage.
The cottage has been spruced up in the half century since he looked down on it and is now enclosed in railings carrying the hammer and sickle motif. It was preserved not long after a secret meeting was held there in 1898 when, after an apology for absence was read out (Lenin couldn’t make it), an early manifesto was drawn up for what became the Russian Communist Party.
Its open to visitors – if you can persuade the sullen babushka inside to leave her small electric fire and unlock the door. Faded photographs show hundreds of eager comrades queuing patiently outside as they wait to pay homage to their doctrine. Today you will almost certainly have the place to yourself.
Tapestry of Lenin in the Minsk Museum of the Great Patriotic War
In 1962 with a new wife and family, Oswald returned to the United States. The following year he hid on the 6thfloor of a book depository overlooking Dealey Plaza in Dallas as President Kennedy passed by. Soon after, he was himself assassinated.
fine travel photography by martin norris 