Exhibitions

The exhibition "Letters from Siberia" highlights both the symbolic meaning of birch bark and the phenomenon of letter writing as a way of practicing spirituality under captivity in the Gulag camps and deportation sites in Siberia (1941–1965).

The symbol of the exhibition "Letters from Siberia" is the birch tree. During the years of extreme poverty during the Second World War, for people imprisoned in camps or forcibly relocated to remote areas of Siberia, birch wood was the only material available to write or make utensils or shoes. Birch bark was used to cover the holes in the huts, called barracks, and to line the beds. Birchwood was also a reminder of the Motherland. The poet Aleksandrs Pelēcis, who spent 23 years and 9 months in the Gulag, wrote: "Birch, lend me the birch bark when you say farewell to the Motherland."

Letters were the only fragile link between loved ones at home and in Russia's places of exile. After the Second World War, letters on birch bark to relatives and friends acquired a special symbolic meaning when paper became available.

That is why the exhibition is arranged as a birch grove. It forms a circle. It is like a symbolic birch grove where visitors can go inside and feel alone. To be YOURSELF, to feel the magic of the birch, to reflect on what is known and what is seen. One can also walk around the symbolic birch grove. Each tree group is connected to a story. It is the story of the deportations, of the participants in the national independence movement, of the bearers of the idea of Latvian independence, and their family members who were in the way of the occupation authorities and therefore repressed. Themes such as the mass deportations of 1941 and 1949, the survival of deported and punished men in the camps, the inhumanly hard work of deported family members – women, children, and the elderly – and the desperate struggle for the health and education of their children and their return to their homeland, are highlighted in this story. Birchwood stand bases, display cases, and even seats are made of birch wood. The birch tree is the most important image of this exhibition.

The 12 exhibition stands feature photographs and quotations from birch wood letters. The exhibition as a whole is designed as a symbolic conversation circle. Visitors can stop at each stand or choose the one that speaks to them most and get to know a particular life story. For 15 years, curator Agrita Ozola has been working with letters on birch bark to find answers to the question of what gave the prisoners and deportees in the Gulag camps their strength. The answer is in the exhibition.

The overwhelming desire was to return to Latvia, to their homeland. Letters, writing letters, thinking, and maintaining one's spirituality were the primary sources of strength. They wrote to survive, not to forget, to keep the spirit of resistance, to keep their identity, to love our country and its strong families to continue, to keep the strength and value of Latvia –the independence of the State.

The Latvian National Register of the UNESCO Memory of the World Programme includes letters written in Siberia on birch wood. The Tukums Museum prepared the exhibition with ten other Latvian museums that preserve letters on birch bark. The exhibition has been exhibited in Latvia and France at the Strasbourg National and University Library. The exhibition is accompanied by the book, "Letters from Siberia," prepared by the curator Agritas Ozola, which contains the texts of the letters in the original languages and translation, as well as the fate stories of the letter writers and historical photographs. A photograph taken by the Lithuanian Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights, showing deported Latvians and Lithuanians at Zavodovka Forestry, Nizhnyingash District, Krasnoyarsk Region, on 1 March 1952, is used for the publicity of the exhibition.

Curator Agrita Ozola, designer Tatjana Raičiņeca.

Entrance fee: adults EUR 1,50, schoolchildren, students and senior citizens EUR 1,00.