‘A future alternative’

An exhibition showcasing Russia’s Putin-era achievements is becoming a national center that could rival Lenin’s Mausoleum

Over the weekend, a closing ceremony that featured a wide array of “patriotic” Russian pop stars marked the end of a major exhibition in Moscow devoted to showcasing the accomplishments of Vladimir Putin’s long and unfinished presidency. The “Rossiya” exhibition at the All-Russian Exhibition Center is over for now, but Putin has ordered its transformation into a permanent “national center” in the capital (regional affiliates are planned, too). While some officials warn that talk of “legacy” flirts dangerously with bookending the Putin era, it’s possible that the new center could serve symbolically as “a future alternative to Lenin’s Mausoleum.” In a new report for Meduza, special correspondent Andrey Pertsev explains the exhibition’s genesis, success, and place in Kremlin politics. Here are a few of his main findings.

Kiriyenko scores

The “Rossiya” exhibition is the brainchild of Kremlin domestic policy czar Sergey Kiriyenko, who initially hoped to convince Putin to announce his March 2024 reelection campaign at the event’s opening ceremony in November 2023. Putin didn’t do this (he waited another month and made the announcement during a meeting with soldiers), but the president did eventually visit the exhibition multiple times before his reelection. In January 2024, Putin even extended Rossiya’s closing date from April to July, to ensure that “millions of people” could witness the spectacle in the summer. A source told Meduza that the exhibition captured Russia as Putin sees it, presented moreover in the numbers and statistics that so enamor the president.

A mecca for sycophants and maybe even tourists

Prominent propagandists like Vladimir Solovyov and Margarita Simonyan, as well as senior state officials like Prime Minister Mikhail Mishushtin and Sergey Kiriyenko himself, gave lectures at the exhibition, which claimed 17 million visitors during its initial run. Three sources told Meduza that they doubt this number, but they acknowledge that the attraction was not unpopular (even if some of the attendees were students and state employees ordered to come).

The exhibition itself was somewhat unfocused — but so what?

A political strategist who works on gubernatorial election campaigns told Meduza that the Rossiya exhibition resembled a “stylish flea market” in its colorful lack of a unifying concept. Nevertheless, it proved to be a networking opportunity for regional delegations and provided the Kremlin with a “source of continuous positive news” without hardly being news at all. The political strategist who spoke to Meduza said the exhibition effectively became the main platform for pro-government events, and the center to be created in its place will also be a venue for the Expert Institute for Social Research, the presidential administration’s main think tank.

A source close to the State Duma’s leadership told Meduza that the Rossiya National Center is one of the Kiriyenko team’s new “infrastructure projects,” which are especially attractive to state officials from a financial perspective. (Regional governments diverted tens of millions of rubles to their exhibition delegations, leading to some complaints of public waste.) The center already has a proposed site at the Krasnopresnenskaya Embankment on land owned by the City of Moscow, and planning calls for the exhibition’s management to contract construction workers by the start of next year.

Reporting by Andrey Pertsev. English-language summary by Kevin Rothrock.