REVIEW
Museums
Museums dedicated to Soviet political repression in Kazakhstan
Marc Díaz Planas Researcher and educator in human rights University of Barcelona ’ s Solidarity Foundation
There are currently four museums that specifically focus on political repression during Soviet times in Central Asia . One is in Uzbekistan and the other three are dotted around Kazakhstan .
Spanning an area more than four times the size of France and with almost 20 million inhabitants , today ’ s Kazakhstan is in many respects still the result of the Soviet past : colonisation and above all Stalin ’ s deportations , as well as the internal mobility driven by the system itself , have shaped the demography of today ’ s Kazakhstan . For example , this accounts for the fact that 15 per cent of the population is Russian with Kazakh citizenship . In political terms , it is considered an authoritarian state , officially committed to a policy of inter-ethnic harmony , while promoting the language and identity of the Kazakh ethnicity . The economic structure also owes much to the Republic ’ s role in the USSR ’ s economic organisation .
Moreover , Kazakhstan is a major site in terms of the history of political repression and especially of the Gulag system . Some of these sites have been commemorated as memorials and museums , as part of a policy of remembrance that began with independence and was tentatively implemented so as not to upset Moscow . These include the ALZHIR Museum and Memorial complex of Victims of Political Repressions and Totalitarianism , the KarLag Museum and the Museum of Political Repression .
If we begin the itinerary from the northern steppes , approximately 30 km from the brand new capital Astana , we will come upon the “ ALZHIR ” Museum . It was popularly known as the “ Akmolinsk camp for wives of traitors to the Motherland ”, or the “ 26th point ” of the
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Observing Memories Issue 7