The Museum organises many temporary exhibitions that are partly or entirely dedicated to the history of the Gulag in the Komi Republic. Since 1990 the Museum has created 12 such exhibitions: ‘The Komi Krai (Oblast, Autonomous Republic) from 1917 until 1941)’ (1990-1991), ‘Political Repression 1930s to early 1950s’ (1990-1991), the photo exhibition ‘The Gulag in Komi’ (1994), ‘10th Anniversary of the Syktyvkar Branch of ‘Memorial’ (1999), the travelling exhibition ‘Germans in the Komi Republic’ (2000), ‘In Search of Eldorado’ (2002-2003), ‘I Shared the Fate of the Country’ [dedicated to the children of the Gulag] (2002-2003), ‘Vorkuta-Leningrad. The History of Repression in Komi, 1950s-1980s’ (2003), ‘The Unknown Nalimov’ (2004), ‘The Muses Cannot Be Locked Out’ (since 2004), ‘The Female Portrait of an Epoch. 20th century’ (2004), and others. Elements of most temporary exhibitions have found their way into the permanent exhibition and as such represent the ‘Gulag component’ of regional history. Starting in 2001, the Museum has presented a so-called ‘express-exhibition’ on the history of repression each year on 30th October. This exhibition offers a digital version of the Museum’s project ‘Between the Lines: History in Letters, Diaries and Biographies. 1929-1959’.
The Museum’s archives include material on the history of the Gulag, exile, ‘special settlements’ and ‘labour columns’ in the Komi Region, such as letters, documents, photographs from private archives, copies of documents from central and State archives, items of everyday life from prisoners and ‘special settlers’, as well as a collection of pieces of art (paintings, drawings, posters) made by prisoners. The Museum has not singled out the items concerning camp history, but assigned them to the general collection. Many of them are kept within dossiers or document files of various enterprises founded during the Soviet era. Several exhibits were collected during an expedition to the settlement Vozhael (location of the administration of the Ust-Vymsk camp) in 1989. They include items of everyday camp life, such as bars, doors, pots, bowls, bread-baking pans, as well as photographs of camp buildings and burial sites. Material published by the National and other state archives is constantly being added to the Museum’s archive.
