44 Lenin Avenue

A researcher's journey to Siberia

Tag: Khanevich

Architecture of Repression

15 November 2019 / / 0 Comments

The building at 44 Lenin Avenue was of course originally an educational institution. It became a site of repression (*nods to Foucault*), serving as one of two local headquarter buildings for the OGPU/NKVD from 1922-1944. Structurally, this involved converting the basements (of both buildings, if I’m not mistaken) into a remand or investigative prison (следственная тюрьма), and connecting the two buildings via an underground corridor.

According to the Tomsk Memorial Society, the corridor was used for executions and to transport arrestees, unseen, between the two buildings. The director of the museum at 44 Lenin Avenue, Vasilii Khanevich, has a dream of restoring this corridor and making it part of the museum.

In any case, it’s interesting to think about the architecture of repression, in this case: both in the sense of how easily it was to convert a building from an institution of education to an institution of repression, but also how, architecturally, the worst elements of repression were underground, and hidden from view.

Anyway, below are two pictures from the museum’s website, linked here (along with a discussion of the restoration project).

Map of the ‘Monument Square’ outside 44 Lenin Avenue, showing the underground corridor between the two buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image of the underground corridor, via the NKVD Remand Prison Museum website

Poem about Klyuev

5 November 2019 / / 0 Comments

Vasilii Khanevich and the staff at the Memorial Museum: NKVD Remand Prison in Tomsk (44 Lenin Avenue) are constantly adding information and material to the museum’s website. While browsing, today, I came across this video of Tomsk singer Pavel Evgrafov singing a poem by Mikhail Andreev about the 1937 execution of Nikolai Klyuev. Evgrafov is singing in the museum itself. Klyuev likely spent some time in the building when it was a remand prison, although available information about his incarceration and execution in Tomsk is sparse.

 

Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions

30 October 2017 / / 0 Comments

Just a quick note: In Russia, October 30 is officially the “Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions.” As the museum at 44 Lenin Avenue is run by the Tomsk chapter of the Memorial Society, dedicated to preserving the memory of the victims of Soviet-era repression, it’s a key day for the museum staff and for the building itself. In the square outside of the building, people gathered and read 1500 names of those repressed under Stalin. Vasilii Khanevich, director of the museum, referred to Tomsk as a key site of Stalinist repression, because the region was such a major centre for exile, and Tomsk itself was the “gateway to Narym.” There are some nice photographs of the event at the link, above.

This particular October 30 is special, too, because it is the official opening of a national monument to the victims of repression, in a prominent Moscow location. Vladimir Putin himself officially opened the monument, stating, as reported by Radio Free Europe, “This horrific past must not be stricken from the national memory”. While some have argued that Russia under Putin has ignored the violent side of Stalinism, including the Gulag, my own sense is that it is much more complicated, a complexity certainly highlighted by this monument and the relatively recently opened Gulag Museum.

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