Memory Garden

A Memory Garden will be created on the territory adjacent to the Museum. It will be a place for walking and reflecting, the space that is usually needed after immersing into the difficult topic of the GULAG’s history.

Trees, stones, and bushes brought from places related to the GULAG’s history or planted by victims of the mass repression will represent the memorial part of the Garden.

On the territory of the Museum, one can already see larch trees from Magadan Oblast as well as maple, a lime tree, an oak, and a rowan tree from the former Kommunarka place of execution. Sergey Korolyov’s daughter planted a chestnut tree from the former places of his incarceration in Yoshkar-Ola.

Getting back from their official trip, the Museum’s staff members brought larch trees and birch trees from the Solovetsky Botanical Garden. Back in the days, many of its plants were planted by prisoners of the Solovetsky Special Designation Camp.

In 2017, the Museum also got rowan trees from the Botanical Garden of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Yekaterinburg; its first director was executed by shooting during the Great Terror.

Nowadays, the trees are located in the nursery near the Museum. Later they will be replanted in the courtyard forming the compositions which will also include “memory strings” – metal pillars with names and dates of birth and death of people who went through camps.

Moreover, the territory of the Memory Garden will include a pavilion for temporary exhibitions, a nursery farm, and a space for events.

The Garden will be open for the Museum’s visitors and district dwellers.