Russian Authorities Shut Down Gulag Museum — But What’s The Real Reason?

The volunteer-run museum in the city of Yoshar-Ola (roughly 100 miles from Kazan) was located in the erstwhile local headquarters — including the torture chamber — of the OGPU, an early Soviet predecessor of the KGB. The founder claims that a new regional governor wants to appease the Kremlin; a group of Russian museum professionals who visited in June argued that the museum needed to be professionalized, with one describing it as “a grandmother’s trunk.”