Found this via a Museum Studies email list. Two things:
i) the entertainment centre – strange juxtaposition. Does it mean that Moscovites have genuinely ‘moved on, and consigned Stalin to the historical ‘dustbin’? Or is this just another manifestation of commie kitsch or ostalgie (as it would be called in Germany)?
ii) Moscow’s chief ‘digger’’s comment
“The best solution would be to restore these facilities in their original shape and connect them by a common transportation system, and use them as a wonderful museum complex that would continue performing its strategic functions,” [by italics]
Isn’t that notion just a little bit bizarre? What ’strategic functions’ could Stalin’s ex-bunker possibly perform in 2007? Especially if it was abandoned in the 80s. Nostalgia for the old regime, or future insight? Perhaps the real meaning is ‘lost in translation’.
