A memorial museum of Gulag labor camps, in which millions of people perished during the rule of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, will be built next year in the far eastern port and gold mining region of Kolyma, a project coordinator said on Friday.
The open-air museum will be a replica of a soviet labor camp, complete with watch towers, barracks, isolation wards and barbed wire. Visitors will be able to see personal items belonging to the prisoners, their letters and works art.
Gulag Echo, the group in charge of the project, won the contract in a competition organized by a charity foundation of a leading Russian businessman Vladimir Patanin with the support of the Culture ministry.
The museum will cover an area of three hectares in the village of Yagodnoye, some eight hours by car from the regional capital of Magadan.
"The village of Yagodny was chosen to host the exposition because ... the main Kolyma camps were located there. There were dozens of camps in this area," Ivan Panikarov said.
During the Stalinist purges millions of people were executed on fake charges of espionage, sabotage, anti-Soviet propaganda or died of starvation, disease or exposure in Gulag labor camps in Siberia and the Far East. According to official statistics, 52 million were convicted on political charges during Stalin's regime.
VLADIVOSTOK, May 14 (RIA Novosti)
