Citing ‘fire safety violations,’ Russia shutters its only state-funded museum dedicated to Soviet-era repressions

On Wednesday evening, Moscow’s Gulag History Museum announced that it would close indefinitely due to “fire safety violations” discovered during an inspection. Citing the city’s Culture Department, the Moscow News Agency reported that a fire at the museum could potentially interfere with the Moscow Metro’s ventilation system, even though the museum has been housed in a building with a metro ventilation chamber since 2015.

Until recently, Moscow’s state-funded Gulag History Museum was the only major Russian institution dedicated to the memory of Soviet-era repressions that hadn’t come into the government’s crosshairs.

Similar organizations across the country came under government pressure years ago. Perm-36, a former Gulag camp that used to contain a museum of political repressions, was converted into a museum dedicated to prison workers’ “contribution to the Soviet victory” in 2015. The Russian authorities blacklisted the human rights organization Memorial as a “foreign agent” in 2016, and then dissolved it in 2021. “Returning the Names,” an annual commemorative event dedicated to repression victims, has been effectively banned since 2020, when city authorities stopped granting the organizers permits.

Founded in 2021, the Gulag History Museum is also one of the few museums in Russia that collaborates with artists, theater actors, and musicians, despite not being primarily dedicated to the arts. The institution has hosted original exhibitions, concerts, film screenings, and theatrical performances, all on the topic of the repressions.

Russian journalists and public figures were quick to express frustration and disappointment over the news of the Gulag History Museum’s closure; many had little doubt that the “fire safety” concerns were just a pretext.

Elizaveta Likhacheva, the director of Moscow’s Pushkin Museum, is one of the few Russian museum directors who spoke out against the Gulag History Museum’s closure. She said that “for people who call themselves patriots to believe that discussing and condemning Stalinist repressions plays into the hands of our enemies” is “stupidity bordering on a crime, to use comrade Stalin’s words.”

Meduza was unable to reach representatives of the Gulag History Museum for comment.