Russia Closes its only GULAG Museum, blaming architectural design

 

         Out of concern for public safety...             

The State Nuseum of GULAG History in Moscow, the only state museum in Russia devoted to Stalin's repressions and to the system of GULAG, will close on November 14, 2024. The Museum posted the following reason for the supposedly temporary closure (translation): 

  “As a result of the museum inspection by specialists from the Center for Expertise, Research and Testing in Construction, fire safety violations were identified. According to the conclusion, they pose a threat to the safety and comfortable stay of museum visitors and must be eliminated.”

The GULAG History State Museum was opened in 2004 and its exposition is devoted to the history of the labour camp's system, the paramount integral part of the Soviet state machine during 1930-50s years. One of the most important sections of the exposition is the reconstruction of some details of camp daily life. The Museum has 46 staff, 20 of them curatorial and had some 27000 visitors a year.

There is however an interactive GULAG online virtual museum run from Czechia, and a YouTube channel (in Czech), and the decaying ruins of the ca,mps themseleves, and the monumental projects their occupants were coerced into executing, are still out there in the countryside of Russia and also surrounding countries.

 Maybe we should expand some of our Polish museums to more fully document this phenomenon if the Russians can't manage this historical honesty? Enough Poles were also affected by this Soviet system to justify that.