In the project Post Box No. 223 *, I explore historical memory as a tool of political control and ideological propaganda, and its erasure or distortion depending on shifts in power. I am interested in how collective memory continues to function under conditions of censorship, and in how private initiatives, lacking access to institutional sources of information, construct alternative narratives.
Specialists in Russian history observe that after Stalin's death, regimes close to totalitarianism built their identity on approval of his policies, including the use of forced prisoner labor, while regimes associated with the "Thaw" ** and a relative shift toward a more democratic model criticized the Stalinist system and denounced the criminal nature of its practices.
The result of these ongoing ideological oscillations is the absence of a shared view of this historical period and the impossibility of a thorough working-through of collective trauma — which today, amid growing autocratization, is leading to a new wave of re-Stalinization, to the destruction of every form of memory of Stalinist terror, and to the closing of museums, monuments, and organizations dedicated to political repression.
The site of my investigation is the city of Vorkuta. It is here, in my view, that this situation finds its most manifest expression. Although the city was once one of the main centers of the GULAG *** in the USSR, and was originally built by prisoners, this information is today almost entirely absent from the city itself. Moreover, in recent years the authorities of the Russian Federation have deliberately created conditions under which an increasing number of documents disappear from Vorkuta's archives and museums, while sites of memory in the urban space are erased.
My work is a personal investigation into Vorkuta and its historical context, carried out under conditions where obtaining precise information from primary sources is impossible. It contains not a single object drawn from a museum collection. I travel through the city and its surroundings, work with archives, stay in contact with local residents, and consult with former representatives of the Memorial association of the Komi Republic ****, as well as historians living both in Russia and abroad. I gather fragmentary data and reconstruct situations and objects, sometimes based on information collected, sometimes intuitively, reproducing the practice of artifact-making characteristic of regional local-history museums.
The materials I have assembled bear witness to important historical events of the GULAG era, but do not claim documentary accuracy. Rather, they point to the impossibility of such accuracy in contemporary reality, and constitute a precedent of resistance to official memory politics through artistic process.
Specialists in Russian history observe that after Stalin's death, regimes close to totalitarianism built their identity on approval of his policies, including the use of forced prisoner labor, while regimes associated with the "Thaw" ** and a relative shift toward a more democratic model criticized the Stalinist system and denounced the criminal nature of its practices.
The result of these ongoing ideological oscillations is the absence of a shared view of this historical period and the impossibility of a thorough working-through of collective trauma — which today, amid growing autocratization, is leading to a new wave of re-Stalinization, to the destruction of every form of memory of Stalinist terror, and to the closing of museums, monuments, and organizations dedicated to political repression.
The site of my investigation is the city of Vorkuta. It is here, in my view, that this situation finds its most manifest expression. Although the city was once one of the main centers of the GULAG *** in the USSR, and was originally built by prisoners, this information is today almost entirely absent from the city itself. Moreover, in recent years the authorities of the Russian Federation have deliberately created conditions under which an increasing number of documents disappear from Vorkuta's archives and museums, while sites of memory in the urban space are erased.
My work is a personal investigation into Vorkuta and its historical context, carried out under conditions where obtaining precise information from primary sources is impossible. It contains not a single object drawn from a museum collection. I travel through the city and its surroundings, work with archives, stay in contact with local residents, and consult with former representatives of the Memorial association of the Komi Republic ****, as well as historians living both in Russia and abroad. I gather fragmentary data and reconstruct situations and objects, sometimes based on information collected, sometimes intuitively, reproducing the practice of artifact-making characteristic of regional local-history museums.
The materials I have assembled bear witness to important historical events of the GULAG era, but do not claim documentary accuracy. Rather, they point to the impossibility of such accuracy in contemporary reality, and constitute a precedent of resistance to official memory politics through artistic process.
* Post Box No. 223 was the secret code name for Vorkuta, a city closed to the public in the USSR during the GULAG era.
** The Thaw (in the political sense) refers to a period of relaxation of the Soviet regime after Stalin's death, marked by relative political liberalization, a reduction in repression, and a partial critique of Stalinism.
*** The GULAG was the Soviet system of forced-labor camps and political repression, active mainly under Stalin, where political prisoners and people convicted on various grounds were held.
**** Memorial in the Komi Republic is a regional branch of the Russian association Memorial (classified as "extremist" in Russia in 2026), dedicated to the memory of political repression in the USSR and the GULAG system, in one of the main camp regions of northern Russia.
** The Thaw (in the political sense) refers to a period of relaxation of the Soviet regime after Stalin's death, marked by relative political liberalization, a reduction in repression, and a partial critique of Stalinism.
*** The GULAG was the Soviet system of forced-labor camps and political repression, active mainly under Stalin, where political prisoners and people convicted on various grounds were held.
**** Memorial in the Komi Republic is a regional branch of the Russian association Memorial (classified as "extremist" in Russia in 2026), dedicated to the memory of political repression in the USSR and the GULAG system, in one of the main camp regions of northern Russia.