Independent Russian NGO ousted from Gulag prison camp museum
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}An independent Russian organization says it has been ousted from the Gulag prison camp museum that it has run from 1992.
Viktor Shmyrov, director for the Perm-36 museum in central Russia, told The Associated Press Thursday that his organization had lost the property after losing a lawsuit against the regional Ministry of Culture, which announced in 2013 that it would take over.
Shmyrov condemned the new concept for the museum: "There was no talk of political repression, no talk of Stalin."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Historians estimate that under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, 700,000 people were executed during the peak of the purges in 1937-1938. Millions more died of harsh labor and cruel treatment in the giant Gulag prison camp system, mass starvation in Ukraine and southern Russia and deportations of ethnic minorities.