The PERM-36 museum is located on the territory of a former correctional labor colony in the village of Kuchino, Chusovsky district, Perm region. This museum is the only GULAG camp that has survived to this day. Here one can clearly imagine how political prisoners lived in those harsh times.
The colony begins its history back in the Stalinist times. In 1946, wooden barracks were built here for prisoners of colony No. 6 of the Molotov Department of Correctional Labor Camps and NKVD colonies. After Stalin's death and the subsequent large-scale amnesties, the composition of prisoners in the colony changed. Instead of criminals, "domestic workers" and "pointers", former employees of law enforcement agencies, courts and prosecutors convicted of various crimes arrived in the colony. In 1972, the colony received its first political prisoners. According to the authorities, the most dangerous political prisoners were transferred from the Mordovian camps to the Perm region. It was at this time that the colony was named VS 389/36 or "Perm-36". There were two more similar colonies nearby - Perm-35 and 37. In 1980, a special regime section was opened here. "Repeat offenders" were placed in it — those people who, having served time for "political crimes", were convicted again. The site of the special regime was organized in the former building of the timber processing plant. The cells here were always closed. The leadership of the Perm-36 camp did everything to completely isolate these prisoners from others. The Perm-36 camp itself lasted a record long time - until 1988. It was closed by the last of the Russian camps for political prisoners.
The history of the museum begins in the early 90s, it was then that the idea was put forward by the Perm historian V.A. Shmyrov to create a museum and archive complex on the site of an abandoned camp. And already in 1994, a Memorial museum and archive complex "Memorial of Victims of Political Repression" was created on the site of the former ITK-36. The prison barracks, which were being destroyed and abandoned by that time, were restored. They housed the exhibits of the Gulag Museum. Some of the lost elements of the camp were recreated. A barrack built in 1946, a penal isolation ward, a medical unit, a bathhouse with laundry, a headquarters, a water tower have been preserved on the territory of the strict regime site. In "Perm-36" you can see the alley, which was planted by prisoners in 1948.
In the production part of the strict regime site, you can see workshops, a workshop, a sawmill, a stoker, a diesel power plant building, etc.
After visiting the museum, a heavy impression remains, but it must be seen.
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