LENIN’S CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS In the second half of the last century, there lived in the town of Simbirsk an inspector of public schools whose name was Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov. The education of the peasants and working people was very dear to him, and he always did everything in his power to help them. His wife, Mariya Alexandrovna, was a well-educated woman: she knew French, German and English and was also a very fine musician.
Into this family were born six children: Alexander, Anna, Olga, Vladimir, Mariya and Dmitry. The second son, Vladimir Ilyich, under the name of Lenin, later became the founder of the Communist Party of Russia and the Soviet State. In his honour, the town of Simbirsk, where he was born on April 10, 1870, was renamed Ulyanovsk. Young Volodya learnt to read from his mother when he was only five years old. His mother also gave him a good musical education, and music was one of the subjects which Lenin loved until the very day of his death. But he was interested above all in reading, history, and the life of the people around him. When he was nine, he entered the gymnasium and became