The Ministry of Health of the Magadan Region decided to close the Shalamov memorial room

Historian and local historian Ivan Dzhukha appealed to the head of the Ministry of Health of the Magadan Region, Ivan Gorbachev, with a request to preserve the memorial room of the writer Varlam Shalamov, located in a hospital in the Kolyma village of Debin. Earlier, the regional department decided to close the exhibition (the memorial room is under the jurisdiction of the local Ministry of Health)

“The room was actively visited throughout the years by travelers along the route. It has become a must-have destination for all tour operators. The book of reviews clearly confirms this,” says Ivan Dzhukh’s address. It is published on the platform Telegraph.

The appeal notes that the reconstruction of the Room was the final stage of the Shalamovskaya Geography project, which was supported by local authorities. “All the more unexpected was the decision to close the Great Writer’s Room. Moreover, the exhibition is dedicated not only to V. Shalamov; it contained large exhibitions on the history of the hospital itself, the village of Debin, and the construction of the first bridge across the Kolyma River,” the historian noted.

Ivan Dzhukha noted that, together with other activists, he voluntarily donated funds for the reconstruction of the memorial room, and also published several books and developed a project to “break the idea of ​​Kolyma, which is associated only with camps.”

“I am annoyed not so much for my and my colleagues’ work destroyed, but for the undermining of the idea of ​​charity and patronage in the field of culture and art. But most importantly, it’s a shame for the great writer, without whom Russian literature is unthinkable today, without whose name the history of Kolyma is incomplete,” wrote Ivan Dzhukha.

Varlam Shalamov (1907-1982) – Soviet writer and poet. His most famous work is the collection of “Kolyma Stories” about life in Sevvostlag. In 1929, on charges of counter-revolutionary activities, he was sentenced to three years in prison in the Vishera camp. In 1937, he was given a new sentence for anti-Soviet propaganda: he spent 14 years in Sevvostlag in Kolyma. During the last years of his imprisonment he worked at the Central Prison Hospital in the village of Debin.

In 2005, a room-museum of Varlam Shalamov was opened in the hospital. The exhibition is located in the former utility room of the catering department. The museum displays archival documents and household items of prisoners. In 2013, a memorial plaque to the writer was installed on the hospital building with his quote: “What a person can endure, everything I have experienced.”

Lusine Balasyan