Russia’s only gulag museum closed due to "too much pressure"
Moscow (AsiaNews) - Bowing to months of pressure from the authorities, the only memorial museum built on the site of a former Stalinist gulag in the Russian Federation has announced its closure. Perm-36, "will cease its activities and begin a process of self-liquidation", announced the NGO who ran the museum March 2 in a statement.
The closure coincides with an increase in populist sentiment regarding Stalin. According to a recent poll by the independent Levada Center 52% view the former dictator favorably. Meanwhile official propaganda continues to glorify the achievements of the Soviet era, under the shadow of the Ukrainian crisis and anti-Western sentiment.
Government officials inspected Perm-36 (named after the labor camp that stood in that place and whose first activities date back to 1943) on charges of "extremism" last year, after a 'documentary' (entitled "Fifth Column ") aired on pro-Kremlin NTV, presented the museum run by an institution on the US payroll. According to Kommersant, the program claimed that the museum vindicated Lithuanian and Ukrainian nationalists, imprisoned in a labor camp for having fought against the Soviet Union.
Other difficulties include the introduction of the law requiring NGOs funded from abroad to register as 'foreign agents', which has particularly affected the Memorial organization, which ran Perm-36 for 18 years, until they state denied them permission last year. This sparked negotiations to keep the site open as a public museum. Located in the village of Kuchino, in the Perm region, the museum states that any attempt to negotiate with the regional administration "to preserve Perm-36 as a museum of the history of political repression in the USSR and as a unique historical monument has been unsuccessful".
Since the authorities had approved the establishment of the museum, its employees and contractors have restored almost all of the buildings on site. The work was also facilitated by increased public funding in 2004 after Perm-36 was entered in the list of historical and archaeological sites of global significance at risk, drawn up by the World Monuments Fund.
Since 2012, however, the museum states the administration in the press release, the authorities attitude towards the museum has "dramatically" changed. "The financing of the renovation work was blocked completely as was the campaign to include it in the list of UNESCO world heritage sites," reads the statement. After cutting the funds to the museum, since last spring, the local authorities have also disrupted the supply of water and electricity, citing non-payment of bills as justification.
Several dissidents were detained within the walls of Perm-36 (closed as a labor camp in 1987) including Vladimir Bukovsky and Sergei Kovalev as well as hundreds of other political prisoners.
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