The cruiser Aurora is permanently docked on the Neva River next to the Nakhimov Navy School in St. Petersburg. For communists, this ship has a proud history. On the night of October 25, 1917, a blank shot fired from its deck was the awaited signal for the Bolsheviks to storm the Winter Palace, an event that began the Great October Revolution.

(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, the National Geographic book Journey Across Russia: The Soviet Union Today, 1977)