The Moscow museum on the history of the Gulag, dedicated to the memory of Soviet repression and the concentration camp system, has been closed “temporarily” since Thursday, officially for fire safety violations.
In a press release, the museum announced that it was “temporarily suspending its work”, without specifying the date of a possible resumption, “from November 14, 2024” after inspections having revealed “fire safety violations”.
The content of the establishment’s website was no longer viewable on Thursday, with only the announcement of the closure being available on the cover page as well as access to the online bookstore.
The decision to temporarily close the museum “was taken for the safety of its visitors”, the culture department of Moscow City Hall, which manages this public museum, told AFP.
It is the only major state museum in Russia dedicated to Soviet repressions. More than 46,000 people visited it during nine months of the year, according to the culture department.
Its closure, presented as temporary, comes in a context of patriotic exaltation and glorification of the military power of the USSR, particularly since the attack on Ukraine.
“It’s a very strong and impressive museum,” Mikhail, a 40-year-old worker, told AFP on Thursday, interviewed in the museum courtyard. For him, it would be “a great loss” if it did not reopen.
“People must see, understand and know this. This must not happen again,” he emphasizes, referring to Soviet crimes.
Created in 2001, the museum brings together numerous official and family archives, objects and photos that belonged to victims.
It houses a permanent exhibition dedicated to the history of Soviet camps from 1918 to 1956, as well as temporary exhibitions. Shows, concerts and conferences are regularly organized there.
The museum also houses a documentation center that helps visitors find information about their family members who were victims of Stalinism.
In Russia, the figure of Stalin, responsible for gigantic repressions that left millions dead, is however ambivalent.
In Moscow, Yulia, 50, told AFP on Thursday that she did not regret the closure of the museum: “What is the point of keeping this story? I am a Stalinist. There is a lot of slander against Soviet power” , she said.
According to her, “people die in every era. We cannot make memorials for every era.”
While President Vladimir Putin occasionally condemns the excesses of Stalinism, the political line followed by the Kremlin is generally to downplay them.
The millions of victims of political repression are reduced to the bare minimum in the history textbooks. Stalin is firstly presented as a hero of the Second World War and as the assassin of Nazism.
Those denouncing this approach fall into the crosshairs of the authorities. Memorial, the large NGO listing both Soviet repressions and those of the current regime, was classified as a “foreign agent” and then banned at the end of 2021.
Memorial created the “return of the names”, an annual day during which citizens come every October 29 to recount the names of victims of repression. But it cannot be held normally in Russia since 2020: the authorities cite the Covid pandemic to ban all gatherings.
On October 30, the Gulag Museum in Moscow organized a similar action: throughout the day, people read the names of people killed during the Soviet terror.
bur/cn
