Police Search Moscow’s Garage Museum – Reports

Police carried out searches at Moscow’s Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Russian media reported Friday.

The Ostorozhno Novosti news channel on Telegram said officers were at the museum’s archival building and a second building where Garage offers walking tours.

“Garage supervisors and curators are being held and are banned from using their phones until the [searches] end,” the outlet said.

The outlet said the law enforcement officers had arrived in unmarked cars at around noon Moscow time and did not introduce themselves to museum staff. The officers reportedly had a list of senior museum managers they wanted to speak with, six of whom were being held at the Garage office as of Friday afternoon.

Federal Security Service (FSB) agents searched Garage for two hours before leaving and did not detain anyone, according to the RBC and Novaya Gazeta Europe news websites, which said they were unable to establish the reason for the investigative actions.

The Podyom news outlet said employees at both buildings denied that police searches were underway.

There was no official confirmation or denial from law enforcement authorities.

Ostorozhno Novosti said some Garage employees linked the searches to LGBTQ+ literature stored at its archive.

Earlier in April, the outlet reported that Garage’s bookstore had removed the countercultural almanac Moloko Plus and the left-wing publisher Directio Libera’s works from its shelves following threats.

Garage was founded in 2008 by Daria Zhukova and her then-husband Roman Abramovich at the Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage. In 2012, it relocated to Gorky Park.