As a last cutrual place in Astana I visited Republic Museum. And I could say that the most of exposition is dull and useless. Museum has a very poor navigation and doesn’t tell the story. However, the part about Soviet period and Art sections really impressed me.
Museum itself locates in a huge building and it takes time to figure out how to enter it. As I said, clearity is not the strong part of the place.
Inside the bulding you could see (no surprise here) numerous paintings, sculptures and quotes on the walls of Nasarbaev. He defenetly was not a humble person
Art section is located on the last floor and includes Kazah’s artist: starting from XX century up to the contemporary ones. I’m not a big expert, but some of the works forced me to stop and thing about ideas behind. I would say it worth visit.
The rest of museum looks like a bunch of objects they put together to fill the space. You could see neadby some dress from 16th century and 9th century sword. Maybe if you know the history of Kasahstan very well, you could get the point, but I was not very lucky here.
However, in Soviet period hall there are a lot of things to see (nad horrify). Kazahstan is not as loud as Ukraine about Soviet past but definitely, they heavily suffered during that period.
Famine
As a result of repression against farmers in Soviet Union in early 1930s many areas suffered from famine. I knew about Volga Region famine and Famine n Ukraine, but it turned out that in Kazahstan also millions of people died because of food shortages. The estimation is very rough, from 2 to 9 millions of people. We all know about horrible conditions in Nai consentration camps, but were Bolsheviks better? You should keep in mind, that at the very same time they exported to western countries wheat to get dollars for rebuilding the country.
Nuclear polution
At the end of World War II americans used Nazi’s achievements in nuclear area and built the first atomic bomb. For tests they used low-populated area in Arizona. Soviet Union stole american secrets and copied bomb. In Soviet Union they decided to perform tests in Kazahstan, near Semiplatinsk city. As a result people who lived nearby became a victim of radioactive polution. You can google pictures of mutations in that region and they are horrible. As with famine, there is no precise estimates of victim numbers, but it’s more than a million officially recognized people.
Now there are a lot of speculations, that Russia could use Nuclear bomb in conflict with Ukraine. I hope it’s just talks, but we see that nuclear weapon in not a guaranty of peace any longer. It could desroy the planet in hands of terrorists, lunatics and old dictators and we definitely need to abandon it and develop new mechanisms for maintaining peace.
Deportation and GULAG Camps
During the 1937-1939 in Soviet Union launched campain known as a “big therror”. Millions of people were sentenced to death and executed as a “enemies of nation”. Other were convicted to labour camps. Near Astana there was a horrible camp Alzhir (Акмолинский лагерь жён изменников Родины – Akmolinsk Camp for Traitor’s of Nation Wifes). Yes, they took wifes of killed people and put them into a labout camp. If woman had a little child they took the baby too. Mature enough children went to a orphan houses.
In compare wth previous nimbers, 9 thousand prisoners looks not that big, but it is thousands of ruined families.
And the last experiment of Communist regime was deportations. During the esatblishment of Soviet regime and at the beginning of World War II some nationalities were deported from their soil to Kazahstan: Crimean Tatars, Chechens, Ingush. More that 6 million people were placed in cargo trains and moved to empty areas. About 20% died…
Memorial
Today in Russia is the Day of Repression Victims commemoration of . Every year NGO Memorial performed an action in the center of Moscow, near KGB headquarters. Several thousand people lined up for hours to read aloud one by one several names of victims from the scene.
This year Russian government liquidated Memorial and arrested it’s office. Acton in Moscow – banned. I think Soviet Regime has alreary restored in Russia under a new lable.