You have arrived at the Government Palace. Look at the staircase of this building, and let me tell you about the most shocking afternoon in the history of Finnish resistance. It happened right here, on these steps. First, you need to meet the villain. His name was Nikolai Bobrikov, and he was the Governor-General, the tsar's enforcer in Finland. And by this point, the mood in the empire had turned hard. That earlier era of the tsar allowing Finland its own money and language was over. Now came a campaign to crush Finnish identity, to make Finland Russian by force. Bobrikov was the man sent to do it. He shut down newspapers, dissolved institutions, and became, quite simply, the most hated man in the country. Now meet the unlikeliest hero you will ever hear about. Eugen Schauman was a mild, quiet civil servant. An accountant. A man who pushed paper in this very building. And one June morning, he arrived at work carrying a pistol in his pocket. He waited by an upstairs window until Bobrikov appeared. Then he walked down to meet him on the staircase, raised the pistol, and fired three times. And here is the detail that people in Helsinki still repeat. The first bullet struck a button on the Governor-General's uniform and glanced off. The second hit a large medal on his chest, a cross of honour, and skidded away, barely scratching his neck. It was as though the man's own decorations were shielding him. But the third shot found the buckle of his belt and shattered it, and that was the wound that killed him. Bobrikov died that same night. And Schauman? He did not try to run. He turned the pistol on himself and fired twice into his own chest, and died instantly, right here. In his pocket was a letter he had written, addressed to the tsar himself, explaining exactly why he had done it, taking all the blame, asking that no one else be punished. The empire called him a murderer. But across Finland, quietly at first and then openly, he was mourned as a national hero. A single ordinary clerk who decided that the survival of his nation was worth his life. When you are ready, walk out into the great open square in front of you, where you’ll find the tsar the Finns refused to forget.