NOVOSIBIRSK, July 16 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's first ever museum dedicated to life in the Soviet Union opened in the West Siberian city of Novosibirsk on Thursday.

Museum exhibits include Soviet-era paintings, photographs, sculptures, radios, teapots, irons, as well as posters of Soviet celebrities, including the first man in space, Yury Gagarin. Most of the items have been donated by locals.

The museum building is also an exhibition in its own right. Built in 1917, the year of the Bolshevik Revolution, it was later used as a kommunalka, a Soviet-era communal apartment shared by six families.

The Soviet Union ceased its 74-year existence in 1991.

"For me the USSR was in no way an evil empire. I think people were much kinder then than now," a museum visitor said.