The Museification of the Former Prisons: International Experience and Russian Reality

This article is dedicated to several modern approaches to the cultural museification process of former prisons. “The fate” of closed and no longer working prisons is the subject of discussion between state authorities, business and civilian population. The result of the prison transformation directly depends on the funding sources. Currently, there are multiple examples of prison buildings being used as cinema settings, social housing, hotels and hostels, and shopping centers. Recently, visiting old prisons has become a popular destination for cultural and educational tourism, so the problem of creating museums on their territory has attracted fixed scientific attention. The research on the museification process of prison facilities involves the study of the processes of repurposing former places of detention; studying the features of excursion organizing and analyzing the impressions of prison museum visitors. This article analyzes and emphasizes Canadian and French cultural experiences of prison museification, including their strategies of museification and tour guides classification. As an example of the implementation of a comprehensive approach to the preservation of liberty deprivation places as the objects of cultural heritage, the French Virtual Museum of Justice, whose exposition is constantly being updated, is considered. Prisons that have been turned into Museums are multi­faceted objects, and the goals of preserving and exploring these heritage sites also vary: from studying architectural specific of the building to perpetuating the memory of the innocent.