Russia Shuts Moscow's Famed Gulag Museum

Umer Jamshaid Published November 14, 2024 | 04:30 PM

Moscow, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2024) Russian authorities ordered the closure from Thursday of Moscow's award-winning Gulag History Museum, dedicated to the victims of Soviet-era repression.

The closure was officially put down to alleged violations of fire safety regulations, but comes amid an intense campaign being waged by the Kremlin against independent civil society and those who question the state's interpretation of history.

"The decision to temporarily suspend the activities of the State Gulag Museum was taken for safety reasons," the Moscow city culture department told AFP on Thursday.

The museum removed content from its website, replacing it with an announcement of the "temporary" closure.

They declined to comment further when contacted by AFP on Thursday.

Established in 2001, the central Moscow museum brings together official state documents with family photographs and objects from gulag victims.

Moscow authorities said 46,000 people visited in the first nine months of the year.

The gulag was a vast network of prison labour camps set up in the Soviet Union.

Millions of alleged traitors and enemies of the state were sent there, many to their deaths, in what historians recognise as a period of massive political repression.