Lithuania’s new Disneyland: a Soviet concentration camp

Photo by Sergey Vasilyev, courtesy of Environmental Graffiti.

Have you ever wanted to put yourself in the place of someone detained by KGB officers during Soviet times? Well now you can. While Soviet museums and parks across Central and Eastern Europe have proved popular over the past decade, tourists are now seeking firsthand experiences of life behind the Iron Curtain at Lithuania's newest Soviet attraction.

Welcome to Deportation Day, a "live history lesson" based on the accounts given by victims of Stalin's gulags. Complete with KGB guards, doctors barking orders in Russian and muscled interrogations, the four-hour dramatization takes tourists to a replica of one of the camps where millions of residents of the Soviet Union were detained.

The project - funded with support from the European Commission - is the second of Lithuania's psychodrama Soviet experiences. You can also descend to the depths of a bunker ordered by Leonid Brezhnev in 1984 for a similar interrogation experience.

KGB guard greets visitors at Soviet bunker. Posted by Lai-Yee Soh on Flickr.

Interrogation. Posted by Lai-Yee Soh on Flickr.

Doctor. Posted by Lai-Yee Soh on Flickr.

Fingerprints. Photo by Sergey Vasilyev, courtesy of Environmental Graffiti.

Lined up. Posted by Lai-Yee Soh on Flickr.

Interrogatory. Photo by Sergey Vasilyev, courtesy of Environmental Graffiti.

Snack. Posted by Lai-Yee Soh on Flickr.

Gas masks. Posted by Lai-Yee Soh on Flickr.

KGB guard. Photo by Sergey Vasilyev, courtesy of Environmental Graffiti.

Preparing for a nuclear scenario. Photo by Sergey Vasilyev, courtesy of Environmental Graffiti.

“I remember how it was back then and I don’t want to see it, not even for a couple of minutes”

Ruslanas Iržikevičius is a historian living in Vilnius who writes about Lithuanian politics on his blog.

I don't have any particular wish to go there. I was 16 when the system started to collapse: I remember the marches, the exercises and the shooting lessons at school... I don't want to see it, not even for a couple of minutes. I want to erase those memories.

However, it's difficult for someone who never experienced it to imagine it. As long as the experiences are portrayed as they were in reality but at the same time don't become places of worship or admiration of previous times, then this kind of place could serve as a reminder to younger generations, who take everything for granted.

Our communist past is what makes us different from Western Europe. It could also be good for people coming from Western countries in the European Union to see it, if they want to understand where we come from. It would only become a problem if it starts becoming like Disneyland. It's not entertainment: it's a part of our history, even if we want to forget it."

“The KGB guards mentioned the numbers of four people who hadn’t worked hard enough: I was one of them”

Sandra Ronde is an international relations student from the Netherlands. She visited Deportation Day as part of her student exchange in Vilnius.

We arrived in a forest outside Vilnius, where we were greeted by Soviet officers who informed us that we no longer had any rights and had to obey our commanders. We were then pushed into a van - all 40 of us - and transported to a KGB bunker, where everyone got the same clothing and a number. We were only allowed to speak Russian (which I don't speak), as no native languages were allowed.

Then we were led outside to work, where we cleared snow while Soviet nationalist songs were played. After forced labour, we were led back inside and lined up against the wall. The KGB guards mentioned the numbers of four people who hadn't worked hard enough. I was one of them. They told us we would be executed and we were immediately put into a dark cell. Then the news came that Stalin had died and we were all released.

The whole experience only took a couple of hours, but it was very interesting. In the beginning we were all aware that it was a game, but when you're locked up alone in a dark prison you start to realise that it happened for real."