The basis of the museum was the first exposition: “It cannot be forgotten. Chronicle of the Communist Inquisition in Ukraine 1917—1991”, which was created in 2001 by the scientific department of the Kyiv city organization of the Vasily Stus Memorial Society.

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In 2003, the exposition was registered by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Ukraine and since then functions as a museum.

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The idea of creating a museum, organization and active participation in the realization of the plan belongs to the head of the Kyiv organization of the All-Ukrainian Society “Memorial” named after Vasily Stus Roman Nikolayevich Krucik.

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On November 30, 2001, the first museum exposition in the post-Soviet space “Cannot be forgotten: Chronicle of the Communist Inquisition” was opened in the premises of the Kyiv City Organization of the Stus Memorial Society, which reflects the communist crimes in Ukraine of 1917—1991.

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Since the opening of the exposition, the Society has expanded its activities. The exposition from the mobile stands has grown into a full-fledged museum, in which, in addition to scientific and cognitive, educational and educational work is carried out among young people. New exhibits appeared in the museum, expositions “Kyiv Martyrologist”, “Ukrainian Solovki”, “Language exposition”. A collection of archival documents has been collected, a scientific library has been formed, a video library of popular science films, etc.

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Considering the proposals of the members of the Society, the numerous wishes of the visitors and the decision of the Society Council of 10.04.2007, protocol No. 9, the participants of the Conference decided to give the museum under the Kiev city organization of the Stus Memorial Society the name “Museum of the Soviet Occupation of Ukraine”. The Conference also resolved the Board and the Board of Directors of the Society to register the museum with public status in accordance with the Law of Ukraine On Museum Affairs.

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It is known that immediately after the announcement of the opening of the Museum of Soviet Occupation, a hacker attack was carried out on the website of the Kiev organization Vasily Stus Memorial Society.

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In May 2011. The Museum of Soviet Occupation presented the exhibition “People's War”, which highlights the struggle of the Ukrainian people against the Bolshevik occupation authorities in Ukraine. The exposition is the result of more than two years of work of scientists of Kyiv “Memorial” in the archives of 18 regions of Ukraine. It uses more than 300 photographs, many of which are exhibited for the first time.

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In the spring of 2011, officials from the Kyiv City State Administration and the SBU began to inspect the Museum of Soviet Occupation. The reason for such activity was a letter in the spirit of Stalinist denunciations from a citizen, who later turned out to be missing for two years. The correspondents of Ukrainska Pravda in their research found that this letter is an unconditional fake. It also looks strange that the state authorities were not even going to establish contact with the author of the letter, but immediately began to suppress the activities of the museum.

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The museum funds consist of copies of documents of various levels and departmental belonging to the archives, including declassified documents of the archive of the Security Service of Ukraine, photographs of individuals, memories and testimonies of eyewitnesses and their relatives, video and audio materials.
In digitized form, the information of the museum fund exceeds 100 GB.

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The exhibition is located in three museum halls.
The museum organizes a thematic display of materials for visitors. The number of topics at the beginning of 2013 is approaching ten:

Cannot be forgotten. Chronicle of the Communist Inquisition in Ukraine 1917—1991
• People's War
• Ukrainian Solovki
• Kyiv martyrologist
• Lost memory
• Language Exposure
• Broken Fates
• Destruction of Spirituality

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Each topic is presented in the form of stands or posters, which contain photos and documents revealing the essence of the topic. The information on the posters is supplemented by an explanation of the guide or guide (for self-viewing), as well as video materials.

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The museum is visited every year by up to 15 thousand people organized groups of school and student youth. In addition to representatives of educational institutions of the capital, the museum is visited by ordinary citizens of Kyiv and from different regions of Ukraine, and in 2009-2010 the museum was visited by 7 groups of students of educational institutions of Poland, Italy, France, and the Baltic countries.

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The library, which operates under the Memorial Society, offers visitors 4,000 copies of books, as well as a video library of 950 popular science videos. Excursions to organized groups are conducted by 2 guides (scientists of the society). Guided tours and videos are shown to groups free of charge.

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