🗓 On October 6, 1920 Vladimir Lenin and H.G. Wells met in the Kremlin. This was not the first visit of the English science fiction writer to Russia - the author of "The Time Machine" and "The War of the Worlds" had already visited it in 1914.

On the photo Lenin tells Wells about the plan for the electrification of Russia. The guest did not believe then in the reality of this plan and called Lenin a "Kremlin dreamer."

The idea of ​​a second visit to Soviet Russia was suggested to Wells by his friend, the Russian writer Maxim Gorky.

Wells recounted the story of his journey in a series of articles for The Sunday Express that were published later as a separate book "Russia in the Shadows".

Wells was very surprised that, despite the devastation, theaters continued to operate in Moscow and Petrograd. At the same time, in many of them, the audience was not even charged for the performance - the artists in the full sense of the word worked for the idea.

The writer was very interested in education issues, and he asked him to arrange an excursion to one of the schools. After that visit, he was angry - the educational institution was well equipped, better than English schools, and the children seemed more developed than their British peers. Wells was convinced that he was tricked by giving him a demonstration school, especially since the pupils, as it turned out, were very familiar with his works.

Then he went to the trick - a few days later he suddenly demanded to take him to the nearest school. Wells' desire was fulfilled, and then he found something completely different from what he expected: “I was sure that the first time I was misled, and now I will end up in a really bad school. In fact, everything I saw was much better - the building, the equipment, and the discipline of schoolchildren.”

After that, the writer admitted that more attention is paid to education in Soviet Russia than in his native England.

During his visit next to Russia in 1934, the writer met with the new Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.