Moscow’s Gulag Museum forced to close indefinitely amid rumoured Kremlin pressure

Moscow’s Gulag History Museum was forced to shut its doors on Thursday after alleged fire safety violations were discovered, in what appears to be the Kremlin’s latest attempt to further cement its grip on historical memory in Russia.

In a statement posted to its website on Wednesday, the award-winning institution announced that it would be closed to visitors from Thursday after an inspection from city authorities revealed fire safety violations that “pose a threat to the safety and comfort of museum visitors and must be rectified”.

While the museum did not indicate when it would reopen to visitors, Moscow’s Culture Department told local media that work to address the violations had already begun and that the museum would be able to welcome guests again “after all potential threats have been fully eliminated”.

Citing Moscow officials close to the matter, The Moscow Times reported that the museum’s closure was a politically-motivated move ordered by “high-ranking Kremlin officials and Russia’s security services” and that the alleged safety violations were a “smokescreen hiding the real reasons”.

“We’ve sent inspection teams to the museum multiple times this year. They didn’t find any fire safety violations”, one unnamed city government official told The Moscow Times.

Independent news outlet Mozhem Obyasnit said the museum may have angered the Kremlin by holding an event to commemorate victims of Stalin’s Great Terror on its premises on the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Political Repressions in October.

The museum agreed to host the event after the Moscow authorities, citing Covid-19 restrictions, refused permission for it to be held at the city’s Solovetsky Stone, a 1990s monument to the victims of Soviet political repression.

Established in 2001, the Gulag History Museum is the only state museum in Russia dedicated to Soviet-era repressions and chronicles the history of the Soviet Union’s extensive prison camp network through official documents and artefacts from victims.

In 2021, the museum was awarded the Council of Europe’s Museum Prize for its work to “expose history and activate memory, with the goal of strengthening the resilience of civil society and its resistance to political repression and the violation of human rights today and in the future".