Russia Takes the Gulag Out of the Gulag History Museum in Moscow

Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Supported by SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Russia Takes the Gulag Out of the Gulag History Museum in Moscow The museum had preserved the history of brutality inflicted by the Soviet Union on its people. It will now focus on Nazi war crimes. Share full article By Neil MacFarquhar Feb. 20, 2026, 5:20 p.m. ET The Gulag History Museum in Moscow, the last prominent Russian institution dedicated to preserving the memory of Stalin’s labor camps, is being replaced by a new museum focused on Nazi war crimes and the “genocide of the Soviet people,” the city government announced on Friday. The museum stopped admitting visitors in November 2024, citing unspecified “fire safety violations.” Its website was replaced by a brief statement from the Culture Department of the city government announcing the change. President Vladimir V. Putin has attempted to justify the invasion of Ukraine by falsely characterizing the government in Kyiv as a continuation of the Nazi threat to Russia. While there is no doubt that citizens of the Soviet Union suffered atrocities at the hands of the Nazis, the Kremlin has long sought to downplay crimes the Soviet Union committed against its own people. “Any reminder of the crimes of the Russian state is very inconvenient for the current authorities,” said Nikita Sokolov, a historian and editor now living in Germany. “A victorious people can only have a victorious history — there should be no dark pages in it.” The Gulag museum, he noted, had organized seminars and other public events focused on the brutal history of Stalin’s repressions. Attempts to memorialize the millions imprisoned under Stalin emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but the Kremlin began dismantling them about a decade ago, after Mr. Putin returned to power. The Gulag Museum at Perm-36, a preserved former labor camp near the central city of Perm, was reorganized around 2015, with exhibitions that emphasized things like timber production at the c...