Culture
Memory of Russia’s Darkest Times ‘Temporarily Closed’
November 21, 2024
- Irina MakArt Critic
Art critic Irina Mak looks at the recent forced closure of the Gulag History Museum in Moscow. It was a miracle that it continued to operate in the current political environment, but its willingness to compromise, Mak argues, did not ultimately save it.
The original text in Russian was published in Republic. A shortened version is being republished here with their permission.
The Gulag History Museum on Samotechny Lane in Moscow. Source: Museum press service
The official website of the Gulag History Museum says that the museum is “temporarily closed” starting November 14, 2024. Its management learned about this late the previous evening.
The official reason is that an inspection by construction specialists uncovered fire safety violations. Such inspections usually close places down for a month or two. In this case, “the reopening date is unknown.”
The dubiousness of the inspection is confirmed by a report from Business FM, which, citing a source in the mayor’s office, mentions a metro ventilation shaft on the territory of the museum: supposedly, if there is a fire, smoke might make its way underground. But the shaft is located in the courtyard, at a distance from the building, and is actually covered with metal.
The official reason is that an inspection by construction specialists uncovered fire safety violations. Such inspections usually close places down for a month or two. In this case, “the reopening date is unknown.”
The dubiousness of the inspection is confirmed by a report from Business FM, which, citing a source in the mayor’s office, mentions a metro ventilation shaft on the territory of the museum: supposedly, if there is a fire, smoke might make its way underground. But the shaft is located in the courtyard, at a distance from the building, and is actually covered with metal.
The Gulag History Museum in 2015. Source: Wiki Commons
In 2015, when the building was just getting ready to open, everyone noticed from afar the copper sheets shining in the sun, under which the architects, having used this Finnish copper oxidation technology for the first time in Russia, hid the insulation and other technical systems, putting them outside. This saved space inside, which was lacking. The oxidized copper was supposed to gradually darken, in line with the concept of the museum.
The air duct coming to the surface has been there since the construction of the metro, and the building itself, an example of nineteenth-century brick architecture, once belonged to the metro service. The reconstruction was carried out under the watchful eye of the mayor’s office, and the museum was opened with pomp in the presence of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who was not bothered by the pipe coming out of the ground.
The air duct coming to the surface has been there since the construction of the metro, and the building itself, an example of nineteenth-century brick architecture, once belonged to the metro service. The reconstruction was carried out under the watchful eye of the mayor’s office, and the museum was opened with pomp in the presence of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who was not bothered by the pipe coming out of the ground.
“Perhaps the museum has survived to this day precisely because it had municipal rather than federal status.”
Sobyanin gave his blessing and allocated this building on First Samotechny Lane for the museum in 2012, following efforts by Leonid Pechatnikov, who was deputy mayor at the time. But Pechatnikov has long left the mayor’s office, and Sobyanin is concerned with other things currently. Now, the museum is a bother to the federal government, which is trying to reconstruct the Soviet Union.
This version is confirmed by a story in the Moscow Times. Its journalists spoke with unnamed city officials, who said that multiple inspections over the course of a year did not uncover a single violation at the museum, and the decision to close it was made after “an urgent recommendation from senior comrades in the Kremlin and men in uniform.”
The last straw was apparently the “Prayer of Remembrance” – an event commemorating the victims of state terror with the reading of their names, which took place on October 30, the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression.
It was held for the third time since Returning the Names, the traditional remembrance event at the Solovetsky Stone, was banned (let’s not pretend that Covid restrictions were the real reason, as the authorities claim), the Gulag History Museum courtyard replaced Lubyanka Square. Here, as once you waited in an hours-long line, you could see people of the same mindset, hug them and rejoice that you are not alone. This is exactly what the authorities are afraid to permit.
The names were read out in the courtyard, where besides the pipe sticking out of the ground, a “Garden of Memory” has been set up and a temporary wooden pavilion resembling a barrack was built in 2021, designed by the Übermorgen architectural agency. There, the light penetrating through the cracks illuminates the exhibitions and portraits of the repressed, with the railroad ties on the floor reminding us of the mass deportations.
This version is confirmed by a story in the Moscow Times. Its journalists spoke with unnamed city officials, who said that multiple inspections over the course of a year did not uncover a single violation at the museum, and the decision to close it was made after “an urgent recommendation from senior comrades in the Kremlin and men in uniform.”
The last straw was apparently the “Prayer of Remembrance” – an event commemorating the victims of state terror with the reading of their names, which took place on October 30, the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression.
It was held for the third time since Returning the Names, the traditional remembrance event at the Solovetsky Stone, was banned (let’s not pretend that Covid restrictions were the real reason, as the authorities claim), the Gulag History Museum courtyard replaced Lubyanka Square. Here, as once you waited in an hours-long line, you could see people of the same mindset, hug them and rejoice that you are not alone. This is exactly what the authorities are afraid to permit.
The names were read out in the courtyard, where besides the pipe sticking out of the ground, a “Garden of Memory” has been set up and a temporary wooden pavilion resembling a barrack was built in 2021, designed by the Übermorgen architectural agency. There, the light penetrating through the cracks illuminates the exhibitions and portraits of the repressed, with the railroad ties on the floor reminding us of the mass deportations.
“With public life in Russia absolutely sterilized, the museum has become an important – possibly the only – place for open resistance to tyranny.”
At least in Moscow. Incidentally, the Garden of Memory is still open – go see it before it’s too late.
Two museums
The current building, opened after reconstruction in 2015, is the second home of the museum. The order to establish a Gulag museum was signed in 2001, and the first director was Anton Antonov-Ovseenko, a publicist and writer sent to the Gulag in the 1930s with his Bolshevik father. Under Antonov-Ovseenko, who spent 13 years in the camps, the current and, it now seems, last director, Roman Romanov, joined the museum staff and continued his mentor’s work.
In 2004, the first exhibition opened in the old museum, designed by the same architects, Dmitri Baryudin and Igor Oparin, who later led the reconstruction project for the current building and its exhibition.
Architecture has played a key role in the museum from the very beginning, and the architects were recognized in 2021, when the institution received the Museum Prize from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) as the best European museum.
Two museums
The current building, opened after reconstruction in 2015, is the second home of the museum. The order to establish a Gulag museum was signed in 2001, and the first director was Anton Antonov-Ovseenko, a publicist and writer sent to the Gulag in the 1930s with his Bolshevik father. Under Antonov-Ovseenko, who spent 13 years in the camps, the current and, it now seems, last director, Roman Romanov, joined the museum staff and continued his mentor’s work.
In 2004, the first exhibition opened in the old museum, designed by the same architects, Dmitri Baryudin and Igor Oparin, who later led the reconstruction project for the current building and its exhibition.
Architecture has played a key role in the museum from the very beginning, and the architects were recognized in 2021, when the institution received the Museum Prize from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) as the best European museum.
Entrance to the old building of the Gulag History Museum, 2009. Source: Wiki Commons
The Gulag History Museum made a huge impression even in the 2000s: as you walked down the insanely expensive Stoleshnikov Lane, among luxurious boutiques that no longer exist, an arch with the letters GULAG caught your eye. Beyond the arch, through a corridor made of wooden posts, covered with barbed wire, like in the camps, visitors approached the entrance and prepared themselves for the dark stories that awaited them inside.
For almost a quarter of a century, the museum collected information about mass repression in the USSR, recorded interviews with prisoners and their children, who had been sent to orphanages after their parents had been arrested, and organized expeditions to areas where the camps were concentrated.
The museum’s director is featured in Yuri Dud’s documentary Kolyma – Birthplace of Our Fear. Most other similar museums have not survived to this day. The first of them, the Perm-36 Museum of the History of Political Repression, set up in 1994 on the site of a strict-regime labor camp for “especially dangerous state criminals,” was closed down in 2014. The staff that left created a virtual museum, which, according to Wikipedia, is now registered in Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, the Russian authorities appropriated the privately built museum, effectively turning it into a monument to prison guards.
For almost a quarter of a century, the museum collected information about mass repression in the USSR, recorded interviews with prisoners and their children, who had been sent to orphanages after their parents had been arrested, and organized expeditions to areas where the camps were concentrated.
The museum’s director is featured in Yuri Dud’s documentary Kolyma – Birthplace of Our Fear. Most other similar museums have not survived to this day. The first of them, the Perm-36 Museum of the History of Political Repression, set up in 1994 on the site of a strict-regime labor camp for “especially dangerous state criminals,” was closed down in 2014. The staff that left created a virtual museum, which, according to Wikipedia, is now registered in Kazakhstan. Meanwhile, the Russian authorities appropriated the privately built museum, effectively turning it into a monument to prison guards.
“The fact that the Gulag History Museum in Moscow continued to operate was basically a miracle.”
Like an ouroboros
Interactive exhibits, videos and items obtained during the expeditions, along with photographs given by families of former prisoners, made even schoolchildren feel the reality of the camps. Well-known actresses like Liya Akhedzhakova, Chulpan Khamatova and Inna Churikova, among others, voiced interviews with victims.
Museum-goers saw terrifying figures with many zeros (at least 20 million passed through the Soviet camp system) and orders with plans for the arrests and “pre-arrests” (a term characteristic of the 1930s) of men and women whose skills were needed for the system of free labor.
In the museum, one could look at an interactive map of the camps, of which there were about a dozen in Moscow alone, and watch a film shot by museum staff about a uranium mine, where blind horses hauled carts with ore.
The museum is a labyrinth, devised by the architects not only to increase the exhibition space but also as part of the concept – it was conceived as an ouroboros swallowing its own tail. And though there was not enough space for the “tail,” the logic was clear. From “confinement” the audience came out into the light of day. Importantly, on their way to the light people passed through a hall where, to remember the victims, their names were recited. Just as in the Children’s Memorial at the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem, where the names of the children who were murdered are recited non-stop.
It pains me to describe all this in the past tense – I am not ready to part with the hope of returning and seeing the Gulag History Museum again.
Interactive exhibits, videos and items obtained during the expeditions, along with photographs given by families of former prisoners, made even schoolchildren feel the reality of the camps. Well-known actresses like Liya Akhedzhakova, Chulpan Khamatova and Inna Churikova, among others, voiced interviews with victims.
Museum-goers saw terrifying figures with many zeros (at least 20 million passed through the Soviet camp system) and orders with plans for the arrests and “pre-arrests” (a term characteristic of the 1930s) of men and women whose skills were needed for the system of free labor.
In the museum, one could look at an interactive map of the camps, of which there were about a dozen in Moscow alone, and watch a film shot by museum staff about a uranium mine, where blind horses hauled carts with ore.
The museum is a labyrinth, devised by the architects not only to increase the exhibition space but also as part of the concept – it was conceived as an ouroboros swallowing its own tail. And though there was not enough space for the “tail,” the logic was clear. From “confinement” the audience came out into the light of day. Importantly, on their way to the light people passed through a hall where, to remember the victims, their names were recited. Just as in the Children’s Memorial at the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem, where the names of the children who were murdered are recited non-stop.
It pains me to describe all this in the past tense – I am not ready to part with the hope of returning and seeing the Gulag History Museum again.
Roman Romanov, Director of the Gulag History Museum. Source: Wiki Commons
Defense or attack
“In general, I will conclude that this is stupidity. In the words of Comrade Stalin, 'stupidity bordering on crime,’” said Elizaveta Likhacheva, director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, supposedly in defense of the Gulag History Museum. Social media was filled with grateful posts quoting her speech.
Despite her past work in law enforcement and her praise of Putin, Russian liberals began to thank Likhacheva for her support – no other government official said a word in defense of the museum. People even forgave her for quoting Stalin, which was completely inappropriate given the context (some sensed sarcasm in it).
Yet Likhacheva mentions Stalin too often to suspect a hint of irony. And was her remark really an attempt to protect the museum?
Here is the rest of what she said: “they are trying to tell me how I, Liza Likhacheva, a citizen of Russia, should treat my past. The Sakharov Center and Memorial were dealing with the present – it was a human rights organization that believed rights are being violated in Russia, and they tried to protect them, as best they could. But their activities at some point came into conflict with the legislation of the Russian Federation.” (Memorial was liquidated by Russia’s Supreme Court in December 2021 – RP.)
Likhacheva is drawing a line between the Gulag History Museum and Memorial. In fact, the Gulag History Museum, though it continued the work of Memorial, worked “parallel” to it, acting as if it did not exist, even before it was finally liquidated, in the hope of saving itself.
The museum made compromises. In the circumstances, it was impossible not to make them, and it is impermissible to judge it for making those compromises today – no one in their right mind would cast a stone at the museum. Still, they did not save it.
“In general, I will conclude that this is stupidity. In the words of Comrade Stalin, 'stupidity bordering on crime,’” said Elizaveta Likhacheva, director of the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, supposedly in defense of the Gulag History Museum. Social media was filled with grateful posts quoting her speech.
Despite her past work in law enforcement and her praise of Putin, Russian liberals began to thank Likhacheva for her support – no other government official said a word in defense of the museum. People even forgave her for quoting Stalin, which was completely inappropriate given the context (some sensed sarcasm in it).
Yet Likhacheva mentions Stalin too often to suspect a hint of irony. And was her remark really an attempt to protect the museum?
Here is the rest of what she said: “they are trying to tell me how I, Liza Likhacheva, a citizen of Russia, should treat my past. The Sakharov Center and Memorial were dealing with the present – it was a human rights organization that believed rights are being violated in Russia, and they tried to protect them, as best they could. But their activities at some point came into conflict with the legislation of the Russian Federation.” (Memorial was liquidated by Russia’s Supreme Court in December 2021 – RP.)
Likhacheva is drawing a line between the Gulag History Museum and Memorial. In fact, the Gulag History Museum, though it continued the work of Memorial, worked “parallel” to it, acting as if it did not exist, even before it was finally liquidated, in the hope of saving itself.
The museum made compromises. In the circumstances, it was impossible not to make them, and it is impermissible to judge it for making those compromises today – no one in their right mind would cast a stone at the museum. Still, they did not save it.
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