Is Russia nostalgic for the Soviet era?

A new museum of the USSR is said to be under development in Ulyanovsk, a city 900km east of Moscow, at a time when the Russian government has re-launched the Soviet-style “Heroes of Labour” awards. The museum will include a memorial centre to Vladimir Lenin who was born in the city. Originally called Simbirsk, the city was renamed after the death of the communist revolutionary who was born Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. The museum will open in 2022 on the 100th anniversary of the USSR. Similar museums, devoted to all things Soviet, exist in Moscow, Novosibirsk and Kazan.

The news of the museum comes shortly after an announcement by President Vladimir Putin in March to reinstitute the Heroes of Labour awards, launched in 1921 in recognition of exceptional workers. The first medals were handed out today to a coal miner, a mechanic and an engineer among others. Although originally only given to workers in Moscow and St Petersburg, the awards were rolled out across the Soviet Union in 1927. A decade later and the title was changed to Hero of Socialist Labour. Past winners include Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov.

The Ulyanovsk region grabbed headlines earlier this year when it announced the world’s biggest art prize. Winners of the International Arkady Plastov Fine Art Award, in honour of the Soviet realist artist who was born in the city, took home a share in £400,000 prize fund.