Communist Party leader Leonid Grach said the new museum, housed in a marquee, "Is our response to George Bush, who opened the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, and to [pro-Western Ukrainian President] Viktor Yushchenko, who initiated the construction of the Museum of Soviet occupation in Kiev."
The new exhibition features photographs, maps, and copies of documents showing crimes against humanity in the United States, from massacres of Native Americans to slavery, racism and lynch law.
The museum also highlights U.S. military interventions in foreign countries, including Vietnam, Cuba, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, and displays photographs showing U.S. violence in the countries, and documents illustrating the large numbers of fatalities.
Grach earlier said he hoped the initiative to set up the museum in the Russian-speaking Crimea, where support for the country's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko is low, would be backed by other regional Communist branches.
Plans to set up the museum in the ex-Soviet country were announced after the Victims of Communism Memorial was opened in Washington on July 12. The dedication ceremony, at which U.S. President George W. Bush compared Communists to terrorists and blamed the ideology for the deaths of 100 million innocent people, also provoked the ire of China.
The Crimean museum is open 24 hours, and a mobile exhibition will later tour the peninsula's main cities.
