Dark Tourism in Central Asia
Conflicted Histories and Dark Heritage in Kazakhstan’s Gulags
A Soviet-era legacy is leaving lasting memories that some would rather forget.
by Guillaume Tiberghien and J. John Lennon
Soviet Gulag Heritage
THE heritage of Soviet repressions in the post-Soviet regions is multifaceted. It is selective in what is conserved and how it is interpreted. There are also varying degrees of social amnesia of the Soviet period. According to a recent poll in Russia, almost half of Russians aged 18 to 24 have never heard of the political repressions under Joseph Stalin.
Within this context, the recent memorialising of the Soviet Gulags — the system’s concentration camps for political enemies of the state— into national historic sites in Kazakhstan is both controversial and highly politicised.
Over 1.3 million people were “deported” from other parts of the USSR to Kazakhstan’s concentration camps by the ruling Communist Party. Along with Russia and the Baltic States, Kazakhstan had some of the most important Soviet penal institutions. To commemorate this, it has developed prison museums at several Gulag sites.
Two Gulag museums, Alzhir (the Akmolinsk Camp for Wives of Traitors to the Motherland), and Karlag (the former Karaganda Corrective Labour Camp) opened in 2007 and 2011, respectively.
These Gulag museums are important commemorative records of the Soviet period. But the stories they tell of the historical experience of the Soviet past are considerably watered down to create a more acceptable past. The Gulag tragedies are justified by the ideologies of the time, and selective in what they say and do not say about the past. This, of course, raises concerns for museum’s role in presenting historical facts.
Kazakhstan’s heritage tourism, overall, has developed greatly over the last two decades. However, despite their historical importance, the Gulag museums welcome less than 30,000 visitors per year, of which less than 5% are of international origin.
The cultural commodification of the past by the tourism industry, and the increasing search for authentic experiences by tourists, are directly linked to how the past is interpreted and the wider heritage story of a place, like Kazakhstan.
Thus, our research focused on questions of authenticity and ideology in the Kazakhstani Gulag museums, as seen through the lenses of museum curators and guides, policymakers, tourism operators, local NGOs, and experts in post-Soviet prison heritage.
Gulag Museums, Theatricality & Education
SINCE 2017, the Alzhir and Karlag museums have organized a number of reenactment events and other experiential events to allow visitors to better see and understand Gulag life. These scripted events are conducted by museum staff, local military personnel, and pupils from local schools.
Theatrical events at the Alzhir Gulag museum have been immersive experiences, accentuating the ‘dark’ atmosphere of the times. As such, they have more impact on visitors.
For a majority of the stakeholders interviewed, the Gulag life performances showcased at Karlag and Alzhir museums were considered educational and participatory. Their goal is to illustrate the past, while discouraging political repression in the future.
The events had a positive effect on visitor understandings of the tragedy. They went beyond the museum’s normal role of displaying objects, images, and spaces associated with a particular site. For the Karlag Museum Director this allowed visitors to ‘better imagine’ the time period of the Gulag:
The basement of the museum where we recreated cells is very impressive. This is not only about giving information to visitors. It’s about emotionally experiencing the place and attaching personal memories to what happened. For example, in one of the cells, the music is mimicking the heartbeat of prisoners before they were interrogated to render the ‘atmosphere’ of the place more realistic.
The boundary between this ‘voyeuristic curiosity’ and a more traditional interpretation of Gulag heritage through informative displays, text and imagery is important.
Remembering the past also raises questions of the dignity of the victims, and the extent to which some form of reconciliation was sought by the senior management overseeing the two sites.
Museum Interpretation, Conservation & Visitation
WHAT is commemorated and conserved and what is ignored, destroyed or redeployed, is crucial to understanding interpretation and non-interpretation.
Gulag heritage in Kazakhstan today is the result of a number of competing factors. In the museums, selectivity in interpretation is linked to at least partial societal amnesia of the past. This loss of memory is a response to the collective trauma experienced by the population of Kazakhstan during the Soviet era.
In addition, Gulag history is not central to the current narrative of Kazakh nationhood and independence. While it is not ignored, the loss and re-use of many Gulag sites and buildings indicates the low value placed on this form of heritage.
The heritage and history of the Kazakhstan Gulag sites are not a focus of local education, the museum industry, tourism activities, and conservation efforts. Their histories are ambiguous and diluted in local school history texts, which may be seen as an attempt to obscure the painful past, in order to focus on a new national identity.
Yet their legacy endures. Understanding the reasons for their ambiguity helps us to understand the current marginalisation of Gulag heritage.
Creating a More Meaningful Gulag Tourism
OUR exploratory study posed questions about the extent to which those involved in the management of Gulag heritage can offer meaningful visitor experiences.
Can they be historically accurate and respect the dignity of the victims while adapting to the dynamic roles of museums as heritage and education sites?
One of the many challenges with Gulag heritage for local cities in Kazakhstan is whose story is to be told and how it will be told in a non-exploitative manner.
An international seminar was organised in May 2019 at KAZGUU University in the Kazakh capital city of Nur-Sultan, in partnership with delegates from the country’s Ministry of Tourism and Sport, tourism stakeholders and academics researching dark tourism in Kazakhstan.
The seminar highlighted the need for mutually beneficial partnerships between various stakeholders involved in the management of the Alzhir and Karlag Gulag museums. This would lead to understanding the importance of these remaining collections, which should be developed as a visual imagery in museum interpretation.
Tour operators and specialists of Gulag history called for more diverse approaches to illustrating the museum’s artefacts. They wanted to see (re)create narratives that include testimonials, archives, and local community views, along with increased institutional transparency and objectivity.
May 31, 2019 was an official day of commemoration of the Soviet repression in Kazakhstan. Several press releases in the UK and Kazakhstan, as well as live TV footage on Kazakhstan TV, highlighted the Gulag museum. They called on the new governmental agency, Kazakh Tourism, to start a dialogue on how to best develop the former Gulag sites.
Efforts to involve local communities, schools and universities from the region surrounding the museums in the performances at Gulag museums offers hope of progress. Building effective partnerships between local communities, museum curators, tour operators and government officials is clearly in the best interests for effective development of Gulag tourism.
Finding a Place for Dark Heritage
WITHIN cultural heritage tourism, Iliev (2020) says there is a need to examine the psychological motivation in dark tourism as an increasing number of visitors are motivated by the desire to understand the stories behind dark sites.
However, motivations are complex and affected by the conflicting emotions that such experiences generate.
A more comprehensive understanding of motivations and interests of tourists and museum operators in Kazakhstani Gulag sites would help us to better understand how this heritage reflects larger social beliefs and government stories about Gulag heritage. If Kazakhs’ awareness about their Gulag history is low, and school and media coverage is only partial, then lower levels of visitation are understandable.
These challenges are not unique to Kazakhstan, as the mixed legacy of the Gulag era is found throughout many nations of the former Soviet Union. Such sites, if developed and conserved, can offer learning and provide evidential heritage through visitation and tourism.
In the end, ensuring that the narrative of the Gulag sites is transparent, politically neutral and evidence-based is fundamental, since these stories determine the major learning experience for most visitors and the lifelong lessons they will take away.
This Article is Based On:
See other Research Articles on “Dark Tourism” published in ‘Tourism Geographies’.
About the Authors
Guillaume Tiberghien
J. John Lennon
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Additional References
- Iliev, D. (2020). Consumption, motivation and experience in dark tourism: a conceptual and critical analysis. Tourism Geographies, 1–22. doi:10.1080/14616688.2020.1722215
- Lennon, J. J., & Tiberghien, G. (2021). Ambiguity and dilution in Kazakhstan’s Gulag heritage Tourism Recreation Research. doi:10.1080/02508281.2021.1875681
- Tiberghien, G., & Lennon, J. J. (2020). Gulag Heritage Conservation, Visualisation and Interpretation for Tourism Development: A Multi-stakeholder Perspective. Tourism Planning and Development. doi:10.1080/21568316.2020.1855240
- Lennon, J. J., & Tiberghien, G. (2019). Kazakhstan Gulag heritage: Dark tourism and selective interpretation. International Journal of Tourism Research. doi:10.1002/jtr.2341
- Memorial (2001). Karlag: Endless Pain of Hard Times (Memoir) The International Charitable Society of History, Enlightenment and Human Rights Protection , Bolashak Karaganda University, Kazakhstan. (public domain image)
- Tiberghien, G., Garkavenko, V., & Milne, S. (2015). Authenticity and ecocultural tourism development in Kazakhstan: Potential and challenges. In K. Kantarci, M. Uysal, & V. Magnini (Eds.), Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges (pp. 41–66). Oakville: Apple Academic Press.
For additional references, please see journal article that this paper was originally based on (linked above and here).
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