Maria Alexandrovna Ulyanova (Russian: Мария Александровна Ульянова; née Blank; 6 March [O.S. 22 February] 1835 – 25 July [O.S. 12 July] 1916) was the mother of Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik revolutionary leader and founder of the Soviet Union. In 1838, Ulyanova's mother died and her father turned to his sister-in-law, Ekaterina von Essen, to help raise the children. Together they bought a country estate near Kazan and moved the family there. She went abroad twice to meet with Vladimir Lenin (to France in the summer of 1902 and Stockholm in the fall of 1910).