The “difficult” penitentiary system heritage: analysis of a case-study excursion to the Tobolsk prison castle

The article is dedicated to an analysis of a personal excursion to the Museum of Siberian Penal Servitude and Exile in Tobolsk, which is a museified prison. The author considers the museum as an object belonging to a special type of cultural heritage - “traumatic” or “difficult”. The key features of such heritage sites are the absence of the usual characteristics of cultural value, the negative nature of the events associated with the object, and the ambiguous social attitude towards them. By examining the content of the excursion in detail, the author draws the attention to the peculiarities of the personal interpretation of the structural elements of the exposition. The general perception of the museum exposition perception was formed by analyzing visitor feedback posted on popular search engines. There is a significant difference in the perception of the museum after an independent inspection of the exposition and by means of its excursion service. In this regard, the forms of communication between the museum and visitors are of great importance. The traditional excursion remains an effective way of broadcasting the historical assessment of events and phenomena, while master classes, quests and games, due to the predominance of the entertainment component, are not able to do this in full.