Despite having a Soviet past, Ukraine does not have a museum dedicated to exploring this history. Until now. The National Expocenter of Ukraine will open an exhibition dedicated to USSR propaganda.

The National Expocenter of Ukraine is a fitting place for a museum dedicated to exposing communism. According to the acting director Yevhen Mushkin, the Center was used as the ultimate tool of Soviet propaganda. Its main aim was to show the world how productive and successful communism was.

Yevhen Mushkin, Acting Director General of Expocentre

That’s why we decided to create this museum of monumental propaganda specifically here, in the National Expocentre, where basically all of the central buildings are part of this monument.

To this end, the first museum dedicated to totalitarian propaganda of the USSR will be opened in Kyiv. The exhibition will help to explore and rethink the history of the Soviet Union.

Yevhen Mushkin, Acting Director General of Expocentre

The main idea is to turn the page of history, of Soviet history in Ukraine. To leave Communism, finally. Basically, by creating this museum, we are turning the page.

Communist propaganda was used to influence how citizens of the USSR thought.

Volodymyr Vyatrovych, Head of Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance

Ukraine was a place where you could gain experience which would then be used for conquering other countries. That is why it’s important to rethink this experience of Ukraine being part of a totalitarian system. It’s important to remember that period which should never be repeated.

The museum will consist of two parts. An outdoor exposition of monuments and other relics. And an indoor display of documents, posters, and other propaganda materials in the main pavilion. The first part of the museum is planned to be opened this fall.

Maxim Bakhmatov, Project Manager

If we do it, then we do it according to world standards, as high-quality as possible. We won’t take any state or communal funds for this project. We will collect the funds from private investors. The budget is from 15 to 20 million hryvnias approximately.

Ukraine began aggressively stripping away its communist past in spring 2015. More than two and a half thousand monuments of glorifying communism were destroyed. Thousands of street names have been changed.

And yet, this process has been more about burying the past. But this museum at the Expocenter will be about exposing it.