TOMSK, Feb 26 – RIA Tomsk. "The
History of the Gulag. System and Victims" new exhibition opened at the
Tomsk Regional Museum of Local Lore; interactive formats will show where
the camps were located, what prisoners were doing in different parts of
the country, what they wrote to relatives and much more, coordinator of
regional projects of the Memory Fund Alexey Trubin told.
Earlier
it was reported that the Russian Fund "Perpetuating the Memory of
Victims of Political Repressions" (Memory Fund) bought out for the Tomsk
memorial museum "NKVD Remand Prison" the adjacent room in a building at
44 Lenin Avenue. After the renovation, which will begin in the coming
months, the area of the museum will double, it will renew the
exposition and open a cafe.
According to Trubin, the
exhibition "The History of the Gulag. System and Victims" opened in the
Tomsk Regional Museum after several years of "travels" throughout the
country and will remain here for a long time – as the main exhibition of
the Tomsk memorial museum "NKVD Remand Prison" (a branch of the Museum
of Local Lore) for the period of renovation and after its end.
"The
exhibition shows how the system of mass repressions developed in the
Soviet Union, from 1918 to the end of the 50s. The exhibition is very
interactive: it is important that all this (the exposition) evokes a
sense of belonging – and all this tactility, the need to move elements
by hand, turn something... A person literally "touches history", – he
said.
The interlocutor added that the exhibition is
gradually being localized – the exhibits and stories will be replaced by
"local" ones related to the history of Siberia and the Tomsk region.
"The history of Tomsk is not so much the history of the camps, but the
history of special settlements and exiles. It is also important to tell
about this", – Trubin noted.
According to the
correspondent of RIA Tomsk, the exhibition can be used to collect a map
of the White Sea-Baltic Canal (Belomorkanal), to delve into a card index
containing documents, letters from prisoners and other documentary
facts about camp life, and read samizdat during the Great Terror. In
addition, the exhibition presents an interactive map of the camps,
equipped with an audio guide, which will tell you what the exiles were
doing in different territories.
© РИА Томск. Таисия ВоронцоваAt the exhibition "The History of the Gulag. System and Victims"
There is an electronic
stand at the exhibition, thanks to which, in particular, one can find
out that in the Tomsk region, prisoners were mainly engaged in the
construction, for example, of the buildings of the classical and
polytechnic universities, as well as residential buildings, factories,
roads, railway lines and dead ends. In addition, the exiles were engaged
in the expansion of the Tomsk hydroelectric power station, woodworking,
worked at the Zavarzino state farm and the Mezheninovka subsidiary
farm.
© РИА Томск. Таисия ВоронцоваAt the exhibition "The History of the Gulag. System and Victims"
© РИА Томск. Таисия ВоронцоваAt the exhibition "The History of the Gulag. System and Victims"