Winner of the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought Russian NGO Memorial opens its archives to EuroparlTV. Family histories and personal momentos reveal the everyday reality of life under a repressive regime. But the collection continues to grow as more h

Reporter: Recording past and present abuses in Russia

20 years after   Andrei Sakharov's death

the Parliament's prize for   freedom of thought, named after him,

was given to Memorial,   a Russian NGO that monitors

in the Soviet Union   and post-Soviet states.

EuroparlTV went to Moscow   to examine Memorial's archives

and discover the reality of defending   human rights in today's Russia.

holds thousands of   documents and photographs

that provide a snapshot of life   under a repressive regime

that the abuses and suffering of the   Soviet years would never be forgotten.

Memorial - Oleg Orlov, Sergei Kovalev   and Lyudmila Alexeyeva...

This year it received   the Sakharov Prize in the Parliament

in recognition of its contribution to   the defence of human rights.

Andrei Sakharov himself helped create   the organisation years ago.

In the archives you can uncover   a trove of personal items.

Letters written by children to   their parents held in the labour camps.

Personal stories are protected,   not left to the sands of time.

Histories of the everyday,   of human life are treasured.

The most important thing is   how we build the collection.

People's history is more   important than the history of the state.

For years we studied only the state.   The individual had no place.

The archive makes the individual the   yardstick by which we measure history.

We do not collect copies   of materials in state archives.

We collect documents to study the history   of repression through family history,

the impact of terror on people's   consciousness and lives to current times.

Inside the Memorial building,   there's a small museum too,

just one room,   but filled with a thousand stories.

It preserves the history   of the labour camps,

where dissidents, intellectuals   and other ‘enemies of the state’

were sent to be punished   and re-educated.

The museum contains   the items of everyday life:

clothing, identification badges,   the obligatory photos of Stalin.

where the prisoners   are able to express

something about their confinement   and their future hopes.

The museum is small but it aims to stop   people from forgetting what happened.

In the first place, it is after all   the history of our country.

It happened,   and people lived through it

So many people   crushed in the process.

It ruined the lives   of millions of people.

Their freedom was taken away,   and they lived behind an iron curtain.

Memorial also works to   defend human rights in today's Russia.

For example in Chechnya,   Memorial monitors allegations

But Memorial is also battling   against public indifference

and marginalisation in the largely   state-owned media.

Yulia Klimova is   a press officer for Memorial.

It's her job to try to catch the   attention of the Russian media,

but as she explains the battle against   political repression continues.

Most of the media   is under government control.

So I can say that our information   is of no interest to them.

It's probably a bad thing   that they don't even criticise us.

Some media outlets work with us   but most of them are internet based.

Today's Russia is very different from   the Russia of Sakharov's time.

But the prize to Memorial reminds us   that not everything has changed.

Human rights abuses   are not just a faint memory,

has not been filed away   in an archive in Memorial.