3 . Room in Kartag Museum . Picture by Marc
Díaz Planas .
is the basement , the most experience-oriented part of the visit , which exudes an oppressive atmosphere with recreations of interrogation and torture rooms , although there is no evidence that such “ activities ” took place in these spaces . One of the last rooms concerns the partnership with a research and education initiative run by a local private academic institution .
Outside the museum , if we cross the town to the south , we reach what is known as the Mamochkino cemetery . Here visitors will see a fencedoff plot of land , which depending on the time of year is thick with grass , covering part of the mass graves where an unknown number of children who died in the KarLag “ archipelago ” were buried . The space contains several small monoliths erected on the initiative of the church and private individuals , as well as a dozen old metal crosses put up by relatives . Today ’ s relatively well-kept appearance , including a sign in Kazakh , Russian and English , is due to maintenance work carried out five years ago by several local and academic institutions .
The third case is in the far south of the country , traditionally more urban and commercial : the Museum of Victims of Political Repression in the city of Shymkent . Set up in 2001 , it proudly claims to be Kazakhstan ’ s first museum on the political repression of 1937-38 . At the centre of the exhibition hall is an eerie sculpture evoking the repression ,
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