Interview by Wladek Flakin

Esteban Volkov was thirteen when assassins tried to murder him. Because his grandfather was Leon Trotsky. Now ninety-one, Volkov keeps Trotsky’s memory alive at a museum in Mexico City.

The building is one of countless villas in Coyoacán: a house with a garden behind a very high wall. Coyoacán used to be a rural town outside of Mexico City where artists sought tranquility. Today it’s a hip neighborhood in the middle of the megacity, a few steps from a subway station. The garden full of cacti could be idyllic — if it weren’t for the noise and smell of the highway.

When we arrive, Volkov is waiting for us in a gray suit and a red baseball cap from the Brazilian trade union federation CUT. His deep-set eyes look severe – but soon he starts laughing. Without any noticeable difficulty, he guides us through the house — the residence where Trotsky spent the final years of his life. We see the bullet holes, the walled-up windows, the heavy steel doors — a bit like a prison. All this is now a museum for his family, the majority of whom fell victim to political murders.

Trotsky was forced to leave the Soviet Union in 1929 and found refuge on the Turkish island of Prinkipo. After a few years, he was expelled from Turkey, then from France and Norway as well. In 1937, he received asylum in Mexico.

Trotsky’s daughter, Zinaida Volkova, suffered from severe depression and took her own life in 1933, leaving behind a small son, Vsevolod “Seva” Volkov. After briefly joining his uncle — who had to flee to Paris to escape the Nazis, and was subsequently killed by Stalinist agents — the young Seva moved in with his grandfather in Mexico.

He still recalls those months with the famous revolutionary, going on cacti excursions and narrowly dodging assassination attempts. Then, on August 20, 1940, Trotsky’s luck ran out. He was killed by a Stalinist agent.

Life went on after. Sedov became a Mexican citizen and adopted a Spanish version of his name: Esteban. He studied to be a chemist, and invented a method for the industrial production of the contraceptive pill.

But he didn’t forget his grandfather’s legacy. Since 1989, Sedov has served as the director of the Museo Casa León Trotsky.