Perm-36 Museum announced self-destruction

The autonomous non-profit organization "Memorial Center for the History of Political Repression" Perm-36 "announced that it is starting self-lifting. The relevant information is placed on the museum’s website.

“All attempts by negotiations with the Perm Territory administration on the preservation of Perm -36 as a real museum of the history of political repression in the USSR and as a unique historical monument were unavincent,” explains the leadership of the organization of such a step. “All the possibilities of ANO“ Perm -36 ”to build a partnership of power and the public in this matter are exhausted.”

The Perm-36 Museum began work in 1996 at the site of the colony in the village of Kuchino of the Chusovsky district. The camp, later transformed into a colony VS-389/36, was opened here in 1946. In the 1970s, political prisoners began to be sent here. Here, the deadlines were serving, in particular, Vladimir Bukovsky, Sergey Kovalev, Yuri Orlov, Valery Marchenko, Nathan Scheransky, Gleb Yakunin, Levko Lukyanenko, Evgeny Sverstyuk, Balis Gauskas. Here the outstanding Ukrainian poet Vasil Stus died. In 1988, the colony was closed.

In 2004, the Fund of World Monuments included the Perm-36 museum in the list of 100 specially protected monuments of world culture. Later, the procedure for including the object in the UNESCO World Heritage List began.

Meanwhile, since 2012, the regional authorities have completely stopped financing the museum’s restoration and restoration work, to promote it to the World Heritage List, to work on the Perm-36 Development Program, which is necessary to give the object the status of the museum and memorial center of national significance.

In 2014, the authorities of the region formed a state institution "Memorial complex of victims of political repression." This structure occupied the territory of the museum and seized its property. ANO was deprived of control of the object.

Under the pressure of the public, regional officials in 2013-2015 repeatedly declared their readiness to cooperate in matters of further development of the museum. In practice, however, negotiations were broken every time, and the conditions of cooperation have changed repeatedly.