Taking as a basis the story of Moshko Blank, V.I. Lenin’s great-grandfather on the maternal side, the author of the book discusses what “Jewish origin” means in pre-revolutionary Russia, in the Soviet Union and in post-communist Russia. Why should a Jew from Starokonstantinov convert to Orthodoxy? Why did his great-grandson, V.I. Lenin, hate it when people are defined on ethno-national grounds, for what purpose did he manipulate the Jewish question and why did he not tolerate Jewish Marxists? Why did the Bolshevik internationalists hide the Jewish roots of Lenin’s genealogy? Finally, why do Russian xenophobes and neo-fascists make Lenin a Jew, which he never was? The author examines all these issues against the broad background of modern and contemporary Russian history and comes to a disappointing conclusion about the deep racist prejudices of Russian officialdom.