Moscow’s Gulag museum won a Council of Europe prize for its honesty about Soviet terror. The state has now replaced it with a museum about the genocide of the Soviet people by the Nazis.

Moscow’s Gulag museum won a Council of Europe prize for its honesty about Soviet terror. The state has now replaced it with a museum about the genocide of the Soviet people by the Nazis.

In late 2024, Moscow’s Museum of the History of the Gulag was temporarily closed over “violations of fire safety requirements.” Even then, it was clear that this state institution had little chance of a future in a Russia at war. Still, the museum kept operating behind closed doors. What many had feared came to pass in February 2026, when officials announced that a new Museum of Memory would open in its place, dedicated to the genocide of the So…