Baku became the “revolutionary hotbed on the Caspian.” Hidden away deep in the heart of its Tatar quarter was a large cellar that stretched under several buildings. Here was the home of “Nina”—the name given to the secret, large printing operation into which the mats of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s revolutionary paper, Iskra, were smuggled, from Europe via Persia, to be printed for circulation within the country.
