Perm-36

The memorial history of political repressions " Perm-36 " ( ru: Мемориальный музей истории политических репрессий " Пермь -36 " ) is the only Gulag Museum on the entire territory of the former USSR, which is located on the grounds of a former labor camp. Founded and directed, the museum of the Russian NGO Perm - 36th

• 2.1 Working in Perm-36
• 2.2 everyday life of a political prisoner around 1972 in the strict regime

• 4.1 History of the Museum
• 4.2 Aims

Stock

History of the camp - from ITK -6 to Perm-36

The camp Perm-36 existed more than 40 years. 1943 was in the village in the district of the city Kučino Tschussowoi, founded in Perm region of the Urals, since 1946 it is located at its current location. From 1946 to 1972 it was known as the ITC -6 ( labor reformatory No.6 - исправительно - трудовая колония № 6). ITK -6 was a typical camp of his time. While the Gulag system consisted of large, widely separated camps in the 1930s, one in the late 1940s proceeded to storage networks with small bearings ( the thousand prisoners) who were far away from each other to build. These bearings were cheap to build and usually short-lived: after the work tasks were fulfilled ( construction of a canal, timber felling ), the prisoners moved on and the bearings were either destroyed or left to decay. ITK -6 was established as a camp for wood felling. Due to its favorable for timber transport position, directly by the river Chusovaya the camp, however, was not abandoned after the clearing of the surrounding forest areas, but upgraded and engineered so that even further away with trucks and tractors woods could be achieved. In addition to the camp grounds were storage rooms and various workshops, a smithy and a sawmill built. ITK -6 was the first mechanized warehouse in the region and one of the first in the country. 1952 one of the four barracks was converted into a kitchen building with dining room.

After Stalin's death in 1953, ITK -6 was not closed due to its good infrastructure and equipment, unlike many other camps. Starting in 1954, high-ranking members of various state institutions (police, secret service, courts) sat in ITK -6, which had once sent even people in the Soviet labor camps. This particular prisoner came to a number of special rights, such as better food, but also the cultural program of the camp was built for them, so they got to see even foreign films. However, the prosecution and conviction of the crimes of Stalin's agents did not last long, and soon sat only a simple members of these bodies for ordinary crimes in ICT 6.

During this time the security measures in ITK -6 were significantly tightened. The simple reason for this: good knowledge of ordinary security systems of the new prisoners. In addition to stepping fences new alarm and signaling systems were installed. In the period from 1954 to 1972 ITC -6 was used as a single bearing the USSR for " special purposes ". As part of the new repression and isolation policy of the Soviet government against political dissidents in the early 1970s, ITC -6 was with its high safety standards to the camp for political prisoners. To this end, the safety measures were tightened again: so was the old furnace heating system, which gave the opportunity for passing secret messages until then, replaced by a central heating system. Even the fences and alarm systems were tightened again. In 1972 ITC - 6 according to the strict confidentiality policy, a new coding: VS-389/36. This initiated human rights activists called " Perm-36 - camps for political prisoners " from.

In addition to the strict regime in Perm -36 ( in the USSR four security levels were distinguished: simple, reinforced, strict and special regime ) was taken at this time, the sector of special regime of Perm-36 in operation, a few hundred meters from the main camp was removed. Here, from 1980 to 1987 the " particularly dangerous repeat offender " of " especially dangerous state criminals " kept locked in their cells 24 hours a day. These prisoners had for "crimes against the Soviet state " (Article 70 of the Criminal Code of the USSR: " anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda " ) served prison sentences and were again convicted of similar "crimes". For the prisoners, these inter alia to activists to national independence movements (Ukraine, Baltic States ) to human rights activists and members of the so-called " Moscow Helsinki Group ". The special regime of Perm-36 was the first and only store in the entire Soviet Union, which was intended for political prisoners. This bearing part was much smaller than the part of the strict regime: simultaneously sat here between 35 and 40 prisoners a. In its seven years of existence, went through 56 prisoners the special regime. In those seven years there officially confirmed seven people were killed, the most famous among them: the suggested at the suggestion of Heinrich Böll for the Nobel Prize in Literature Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus, and three other members of the Ukrainian " Helsinki Group ": Yuri Litvin, Valery Marcenko and Aleksa Tichij.

When the camp was closed in 1987, most of these political prisoners were pardoned. After the closure of part of the strict regime of the camp was handed over to the health department, which set up a home for the mentally disabled on the site. As part of these new uses, the safety systems were removed and many of the buildings converted or destroyed.

After 1989, a Ukrainian television crew had filmed a documentary about the special regime of Perm - 36, there not fully vested security systems were dismantled by the Office of the Perm prison.

In the years 2009 and 2010, the Opera House from Perm led each musical theater in the remains of the camp on. 2009 was ordered based on Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. In 2010, the score of Beethoven's Fidelio basis of a "change Concerto " for every 250 spectators.

Everyday life in the camp

Working in Perm-36

Everyday life of a political prisoner around 1972 in the strict regime

• 6 Clock: Wake of the prisoners
• 6-7 clock: time for washing and for breakfast ( porridge and some bread )
• 7 Clock: Start of work in the work zone - the transition from living in the work area was an accurate search of the prisoners at the checkpoint
• 12 - 13 clock: lunch (soup and porridge ), the transition from working in the living area and on the way back to work re- search of the prisoners
• Then continuation of the working day to 18 clock, re- search of the prisoners at the checkpoint
• 18-20 clock: dinner (soup or porridge ) and free time drinking with sport activities (there was a volleyball court ), library visit, tea was spent.
• 20-22 clock: found political seminars and lectures for the purpose of re-education of prisoners who could be attended voluntarily, however, and therefore little support
• 22-22.30 clock: Evening control of prisoners
• From 23 clock: sleep

Famous prisoners

• Leonid Borodin (* 1938), Russian writer
• Bali Gajauskas (* 1926), Lithuanians, spent 38 years in Soviet camps. The first time he was arrested for links with Lithuanian partisans in 1948 and sentenced to death. The death penalty was later commuted to 25 years in a prison camp. During his captivity he learned eight languages ​​, because in the camps were scholars of all kinds from their sentences. In 1973, he was released, re-arrested in 1978 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in the special regime. His crime: he had Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book The Gulag Archipelago translated into Lithuanian and collected documents on the history of Lithuanian resistance movements. After his release in 1987 Gajauskas worked as Director General of the Lithuanian security service and was a member of the Lithuanian Parliament.
• Ivan Gel ' ( b. 1937 )
• Sergei Kovalev (* 1930)
• Levko Luk'janenko (* 1927)
• Vasil ' Stu (1938-1985)
• Mikhail Meilach ( b. 1944 )

Museum

History of the Museum

In 1994, opened the Russian NGO " Perm-36 ", the memorial of the history of political repressions " Perm-36 " on the grounds of the former labor camp. The Museum is the only remaining former labor camp for political prisoners on the entire territory of the former Soviet Union. Since then, the stock is gradually built up again, much of it will be re-established by Russian and international volunteers in summer camps. In 2007, the stock part of the strict regime of visitors can be visited. The special regime part is after a fire is not currently open to the public. In the former camp premises are now in the living room one of the four or later, three former prisoner barracks, in which up to 250 prisoners could be accommodated to see. In it, several exhibitions are currently housed. Also preserved is the 1972 built in place of a prisoner barrack office building, there is ( as 1972-1987 ) a small library and a cinema hall, kitchen and canteen, also the rooms of the museum administration and rooms for museum staff. The plan, however, the barracks at least partially restore them to their original state, ie equipped with beds, etc.. Additional information is found in this part of the camp, the health and medical barracks, a toilet stall with 14 " seats " for up to 1,000 prisoners ( a number that has not been reached ) and the štrafnoj isoljator, the isolation cell block. Many of these buildings date from the period 1946-1952 and thus from the Stalin era of the Soviet Union. In the working area of the camp, which is entered through the reconstructed control station which also had the prisoners to happen and there every time were subjected to a rigorous body search, to workshops, see the camp: a blacksmith, a sawmill, still, a boiler house, whose function was to, the bearing to heat the nearby houses and the barracks of the prison guards and a turbine house for ensuring the internal warehouse electricity production. Also located in this part of the administration building, which also houses the security guards were housed.

Objectives

The aim of the museum is in its original form to preserve the former camp as a time witness and to restore it to its original state to make historical documents on the political repression in the USSR locate, compile and preserve, to the emergence of the atrocities of the Soviet system not ausblendenden historical consciousness and contribute to the political education in Russia, exhibitions with themes corresponding to organize and promote civic engagement in Russia.