Igarka Complex of Local Lore and History ‘Museum of Permafrost’

In the ‘Complex of Local Lore and History’ of the ‘Museum of Permafrost’, Igarka, the Gulag is represented in the separate entity dedicated to the ‘Building-Site No. 503’. The section on the history of the town also contains relevant exhibits. The branch ‘Building-Site No. 503’ opened in 1997 with a permanent exhibition in three halls with 120m? combined floor space. The exhibition is dedicated to the construction of the railway line ‘Salekhard-Igarka’ and presents originals and copies of documents as well as items of everyday life in the camp and in exile, photographs, memoirs and books of the railway builders, and documents and items found at the sites of former camps. One of the rooms reproduces the atmosphere of a barrack with original bunks, a wash basin, items of clothing and camp rules posted on the wall. In 2003 the exhibition was supplemented with material on the prison camp theatre at the building sites No. 501-503.

The permanent exhibition ‘History of Repression in the Igarka District’ opened in 1998 in the main building of the Museum’s history section. The exhibition, taking up about 30m2, includes original documents and copies, photographs, items of the everyday life of exiles and so-called ‘special settlers’ – inhabitants of the town of Igarka and its surroundings. For 2005 the Museum plans to renew the exhibition.

The Museum also organises temporary exhibitions on the history of the Gulag. One of them, ‘Enslaved Theatre’ (1997), was dedicated to artists and figures of cultural life who had been deported to Igarka, and to the history of the camp theatre. On display were not only documents, photographs, items of everyday life and personal belongings of prisoners, exiles and special settlers, but also costumes and stage props. The exhibition was shown in 1999 and 2000 at the international festival ‘Krasnoyarsk Museum Biennal’ and received an award in both years.

Every year on 30 October the museum puts on an exhibition in the Exhibition Centre of the Gorki-Library, for example: ‘If the soul was born with wings’ (2002), ‘And in Igarka the Gardens were in Blossom’ (2003). These exhibitions commemorate figures of cultural life, who were permanently exiled to Igarka, by means of original and copied documents and photographs that belonged to inhabitants of the special settlements of Igarka living here from the 1930s to the 1950s, as well as items from the Museum’s collection.

At the ‘Complex of Local Lore and History’ of Igarka, the collection of exhibits on the topic of political repression began in 1992. About 200 objects, items of everyday life and tools picked up on the sites of former camps, form the basis of the exhibition on the history of the railway line construction. In the course of research on the history of special settlements the Museum found eyewitnesses, collected material from ‘special settlers’ and inhabitants of Igarka, contacted former exiles and acquired copies of archival documents, especially from the Archive of the Administration of the Northern Railways.

Furthermore, the Museum furthers the erection of memorial plaques and monuments on its own territory and in town. An example is the memorial plaque commemorating the deportation of Lithuanians, put up in 1997, the plaque ‘To the Innocent Victims of the Time of Repression. To the Igarkarians’, put up in 1998, and a plaque in memory of the town’s honorary citizen L. A. Baranovski, put up in 2001.

The Museum ‘Permafrost’ participates in research conferences, conducts cultural-educational events and publishes books. Among its most important publications is the book ‘Building-Site No. 503 (1947-1953). Documents. Material. Investigations’, published in 2000.