Moscow replaces Gulag museum with patriotic history exhibit

A Moscow museum that once documented Stalin-era repression has been replaced by an exhibit focused on what it calls the “genocide of the Soviet people,” mbl.is reports.

The new Museum of Memories presents scenes of family life and a narrator’s account of peaceful life in the Soviet Union before the Second World War. It took the place of the award-winning Gulag History Museum, which for years highlighted the killings and imprisonment of millions under Joseph Stalin.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, criticism of the Soviet past has been labelled unpatriotic and removed from textbooks and the official narrative, the article says. The Kremlin has instead placed greater emphasis on rehabilitating Stalin’s reputation, with statues and busts of the dictator erected around the country.

The Gulag museum was temporarily closed in 2024 over alleged breaches of fire safety rules. Its exhibits were moved into storage, according to a guide at the new museum.

A Russian woman campaigning to preserve the memory of the Gulag told AFP, speaking anonymously, that the history of repression would become obscure and the country’s shared history would remain distorted.

Up to 18 million people were imprisoned in the Gulag system from the 1930s to the early 1950s, accused of being traitors or enemies of the state. Historians generally agree that at least 1.5 million died, though some believe the real figure is higher.

Another three to five million people died in the man-made Holodomor famine in Ukraine in the 1930s. A further 1.6 million were executed or died as a result of forced deportations, according to Soviet archives made public decades later.

The Second World War also brought enormous losses to the Soviet Union, with an estimated 20 million to 27 million civilians and soldiers killed. The new museum’s audio narration recounts the war, which Russia calls the Great Patriotic War and dates from Nazi Germany’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union. It does not mention people arrested, executed or imprisoned in the Gulag, the Soviet network of labour camps.

The museum uses elaborate displays to present the Kremlin’s official narrative, but has so far attracted little attention. Visits are available only to small groups that book in advance. Its website says it especially welcomes veterans of the war in Ukraine and their families, as well as university students and schoolchildren.

Inside, a small number of visitors watch an AI-generated account of an imagined family, the Lebedevs, recalling their suffering during the siege of Leningrad, in prison camps and in villages razed to the ground. Large screens show recreations of bunks in Nazi camps and the entrance to Auschwitz-Birkenau.