Stories about the Kolyma camps. Abandoned colony in Kolyma (29 photos)
In the 1930s and 1940s, Kolyma was strewn with camps like the top of a pie with poppy seeds, the prisoners joked. Of course, they joked through tears and pain, because they had to exist in inhuman conditions - literally in cold and hunger, when any disease, be it a common cold or scurvy, turned out to be fatal. And in this hell on earth, so as not to forget,do not go crazy, a person found a place for creativity. My story about the camp language of Kolyma...
A LAND WHERE BANANAS DO NOT GROW, ONLY WARM THE SOUL OF THE SOPKA
To write poetry or skillfully tell stories - this requires at least the slightest talent, but anyone can compose a saying or proverb. How were they born behind barbed wire in Kolyma? An example is the fate of the repressed Mark Gavrish, who in the late 1940s ended up at a mine near the village of Yagodnoye.
In his memoirs, he tells how in autumn in Magadan, together with other prisoners, he was loaded into a truck covered with double tarpaulin (and with a compartment for an escort at the rear side). And with stops every 150 kilometers they delivered to Yagodny. Upon arrival in the Kolyma taiga - a wild, uninhabited place - Mark Markovich's lines were born: "Bananas do not grow here, only cold hills warm the soul." In their proverbs, emphasizing the harsh climate of Kolyma, many prisoners mentioned both bananas and pineapples with watermelons. Example: hiding an ace from me is like finding a watermelon in Kolyma.
STALIN MEAT
Far from the tsar, high from God - this well-known proverb of convicts was supplemented in Kolyma in the era of Stalin's camps as follows: "God is high, far from Moscow, the law is taiga, and the prosecutor is a bear." In fact, in the Kolyma camps, no one actually controlled the living and working conditions of the prisoners. They lived in semi-dugouts, heated in forty-degree frosts by stoves made of tin barrels. Zeka could be fed for months only with salted and rotten herring (by the way, in the camps it was called Stalin's meat). Therefore, in some mines (and prisoners in Kolyma were mainly engaged in gold mining), cannibalism occurred. But they ate not the living, but the dead, cutting off pieces of meat from the corpses. Diseases mowed down people like invisible bullets. According to the memoirs of the repressed, it happened that winter alone killed more than half of the convoy that arrived on the eve of autumn at some taiga mine. And the prisoners had no right to complain about the unbearable conditions of detention. But in some camps, convicts were still given the opportunity to write a complaint. True, the gaps near the camp mailboxes were welded, and the letters did not go anywhere beyond the fence of the special zone.
WHEREVER YOU WORK, JUST NOT WORK
The saying known to everyone: there is no trick against scrap - was also born behind barbed wire (until the mid-50s of the last century, scrap and pickles were the main tools in the gold mines). Further it will be even more difficult - a favorite proverb of experienced prisoners, with which they cheered up newcomers who had just arrived in the camps. For example, when a conversation starts in a camp barracks between a “recruit” and an experienced prisoner, the second one will say to the first one: don’t worry, it’s difficult for us for the first five years, then you get used to it. Or, during the shipment, they will reassure with another proverb: they won’t steal further than the sun, they won’t give less than three hundred (three hundred grams is the prisoner’s daily ration of bread, - ed.)
And here is the stable expression of the convicts: no matter where they work, if only not to work - in the Kolyma camps it has become a favorite of everyone: criminals, political prisoners, and those convicted of domestic crimes.
According to their internal laws, thieves were not supposed to work. And nowhere - neither in the wild, nor in the camp. Thieves, criminals, thieves who arrived to serve their term in Kolyma in the 1930s often said: "I did not come here to plow and mow, but to drink and eat." Or they used to say: “I work on a hair dryer - I don’t work anywhere.”
According to the memoirs of the repressed, in the early 30s in Kolyma, the conditions of detention of prisoners were sparing: many of them, for hard work, actually received the right to early release and good earnings. Zeks could even call their families from the mainland to their Kolyma. Security was relatively small, the Kolyma highway was poorly guarded. As Ivan Pavlov, a former repressed Kolyma prisoner, recalls, trucks with cargo for mines and settlements drove without guards. And it was not difficult for thieves to remove a couple of boxes or bags of food along the way. “Many gangs of thieves got lost in Magadan, by that time a small city. Banditry in it has become commonplace. The thieves' raspberries, who controlled various districts of the city, sorted out relations with each other with stabbing, ”Ivan Pavlov described the northern region in the early 1930s.
One can only wonder how criminals openly hunted in the paramilitary region with the name of Kolyma. Evgenia Ginzburg, in her novel The Steep Route, described how a robber attacked her and her child in the Nagaevsky district of Magadan. He wanted to take away the documents from the woman (in order to correct them for his girlfriend and run away with her from the Kolyma). But Evgenia Semyonovna's identity card did not fit the fugitive criminal. Having learned, moreover, that he had encroached on the life of the doctor's wife, the robber was upset. He informed his failed victim that, according to the thieves' convention, her husband is an inviolable person.
It is worth noting here that doctors among criminals were highly valued, as they could attribute a disease to them, thereby freeing them from hard physical labor, or transfer them to easier work. It was from the beginning of the development of Kolyma that the old thieves did not work in the camps, keeping ordinary prisoners at bay. But from the end of the 30s, the difficult living conditions forced them to revise their thieves' laws and make contact with the camp authorities. Then they began to work as elders and foremen. Who from the criminal world could not get such thieves vacancies, was forced, under pressure from the camp administration, to go along with all the prisoners to the mines, logging or to the face in the mine.
Working conditions in the mines of Kolyma were unbearable. “Better in the summer by the fire than in the winter in the sun,” the convicts repeated. Eight months of winter they had to "rake the blizzard with their hands", getting from the camp to the mine. And there you need to fulfill the plan - to dig 2 - 3-meter holes - the so-called pits. An ordinary winter day for prisoners at a mine in the Kolyma outback: 50 degrees below zero, spit - ice will fall. The lungs are squeezed by frost, clothing made from pieces of matter worn to holes does not warm at all, and the guards force them to dig deep pits. The earth is as hard as granite. Ammonite is placed in dug wells and blown up. The earth loosened in this way is waiting for spring (to thaw and be delivered by wheelbarrows to flushing devices). In winter, with poor food, convicts often repeated: wherever they work, if only they don’t work, if only they don’t spend their last strength, if only they don’t get sick and freeze. Diseases from weak immunity caused by malnutrition and unsanitary living conditions and frostbite were the main causes of death for Kolyma campers.
"I LIVE WITHOUT LONGING AND WITHOUT GROWTH, BUILDING A NEW TOWN IN THE COUNTRY"
The Kolyma camps in the USSR were distinguished by an extreme climate. In the Stalin era, they had the highest mortality rate and extremely harsh conditions of imprisonment. Often, after serving the main term of imprisonment, convicts were given new terms and left to work in mines and mines. In this way, the paramilitary organization of Kolyma Dalstroy solved the main problem of the territory - the shortage of labor resources. “There would be a man, but there would be an article for him,” repeated both convicts and camp commanders. Others joked like this: "I got a year, served thirteen months and got out early."
According to the former repressed, Kolyma, like no other region, is sung in camp songs and poems. Now many Kolyma residents do not realize that this playful statement owes its origin to prisoners: Kolyma, Kolyma is a wonderful planet: nine months are winter, the rest is summer. It is worth noting two more songs that were born in the Far East during the era of the Gulag and scattered along with the released prisoners to all corners of the USSR. And both mention Magadan.
The first - "I remember that Vanino port ...":
I remember that Vanino port
And the look of the steamer is gloomy,
As we walked along the ladder on board
In cold gloomy holds.
Fog descended on the sea.
The sea element roared.
Lying ahead of Magadan -
The capital of the Kolyma region.
Not a song, but a plaintive cry
Escaped from every breast.
"Farewell forever," mainland "! -
The steamer wheezed, strained.
The convicts groaned from the pitching,
Hugging like brothers
And only sometimes from the tongue
Deaf curses broke:
- Damn you, Kolyma,
What is called a wonderful planet,
Will you go crazy -
There is no return from there.
Five hundred kilometers - taiga,
In the taiga of this wild beasts,
Cars don't go there.
Walking, stumbling, deer,
There death made friends with scurvy,
The infirmaries are packed.
In vain this spring
I'm waiting for a response from my beloved.
She does not write and does not wait,
And through the bright doors of the station,
I know he won't come to meet
As she promised.
Farewell, my mother and wife!
Farewell, dear children!
Know the bitter cup to the bottom
I'll have to drink in the light!
The second - "Near the Kolyma Territory":
I live near the Sea of Okhotsk,
Where does the Far East end?
I live without need and without grief,
I am building a new town in the country.
Here comes the end of the sentence
I will say goodbye to the mountains, to the taiga
And in the car on the fast train
I will come to you, dear,
To stay with you forever
Carefree and joyful life
Admire your beauty
And forget the Kolyma life.
Text by Nikolai Dobrotvorsky
October 13th, 2014 , 07:10 pm
So, friends, the other day our company returned from a short but insanely bright trip around Kolyma. There are so many impressions from the trip that it is impossible to convey in a nutshell. As if he was on another planet, almost without exaggeration. So, I will gradually tell in photo reports, while all this only fits in my head.
And today I will tell you about one of the most brutal and gloomy places of that same "Ghostly Kolyma" - about the mine and the Dneprovsky processing plant, which at one time was subordinate to the Coastal Camp of the Dalstroy and Gulag ITL Administration. It was founded in the summer of 1941, worked until 1955 and mined tin. The main labor force of Dneprovsky were those convicted under various articles of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR and other republics of the Soviet Union.
Even today, many remains of residential and industrial buildings can be found here. In particular, in the village located nearby - mostly houses like Russian huts, and in the working and camp zones - part of a crushing factory with large ore dumps, camp towers, barbed wire and various other fragments of a difficult past.
1. Early in the morning we got together and occupied the so-called "shift" - a special bus based on KAMAZ off-road, designed to carry us over 300 km and not always on the roads. Here is Sasha alexcheban
.
2. And here is Dima, still sleepy, but having already reached the laptop dimabalakirev
.
3. The leading and guiding role in this mini-expedition belongs, of course, to Magadan Alexander alkrylov
.
4. And this is the same super watch. Dima Balakirev was very pleased when he found out that her body was made in his native Chelyabinsk.
5. The patency and power of this monster is simply amazing. The truck is able to move almost by swimming, storm steep mountains, snow blockages and other obstacles. Sometimes it became just scary that we would get stuck or tumble off a cliff, but the car always coped with any tasks perfectly. Of course, special thanks to the most experienced driver.
6. Finally, having covered about 300 km and having spent more than five hours on the road, we find ourselves at the location of the camp. Snow is already in full swing here, the temperature is dropping to minus, and it's only the beginning of October. 
7. In winter, the air temperature here easily overcomes the fifty-degree mark. Can you imagine what life and hard labor of prisoners were like here? So I don't pretend.
8. A company of bloggers is trying to brighten up the minor mood of these places. In the photo Vasily vasya.online
trying to dance.
9. Vasya, Sasha and Dima.
10. Sasha Krylov and Sergey feelek
Filinin.
11. Along the way, there are many artifacts of those times.
12. Stove, rack and table.
13.
14. What is it? 
15. That's all that's left of poor Snoopy ZiS-5.
16. Some of the water is already frozen.
17. And some places still don't.
18. On the hills, pits are clearly visible, visible from the rock dumps on the slopes. 
19. Finally, still preserved wooden structures began to appear, which served as a place for the extraction of rock. Here she was thrown into wheelbarrows, which the prisoners transported.
20. Here is what Pyotr Demant and Vsevolod Pepelyaev, who served time in Dneprovsky, tell about life and hellish camp labor.
“The Studebaker enters a deep and narrow valley squeezed by very steep hills. At the foot of one of them we notice an old adit with superstructures, rails and a large embankment - a dump. and leaving a wide black strip behind us.Soon a town of tents and several large wooden houses appears in front of us, but we do not go there, but turn right and go up to the camp watch.
The watch is old, the gates are wide open, a barbed wire barrier on rickety, weather-beaten poles. Only the tower with the machine gun looks new - the pillars are white and smell of pine needles. We disembark and enter the camp without any ceremony." (P. Demant)
21. "Dneprovsky got its name from the name of the key - one of the tributaries of the Nerega. Officially, the Dneprovsky is called a mine, although the main percentage of its production comes from ore areas where tin is mined. A large camp area is located at the foot of a very high hill. Between a few old barracks there are long green tents, log cabins of new buildings are whitening a little higher. Behind the medical unit, several convicts in blue overalls are digging impressive holes for an insulator. The canteen is located in a half-rotted barrack that has sunk into the ground. We were settled in the second barrack, located above the others, not far from the old tower "I settle down on a through upper bunk, opposite the window. The view from here to the mountains with rocky peaks, a green valley and a river with a waterfall would have to pay exorbitant prices somewhere in Switzerland. But here we get this pleasure for free, so we, at least We still do not know that, contrary to the generally accepted camp rule, the reward for our work will be a gruel and a scoop of porridge - everything we earn will be taken away by the management of the Coastal Camps. (P. Demant)
22. "Carpenters made a bunker, overpass, trays, and our team installed motors, mechanisms, conveyors. In total, we launched six such industrial devices. As each one was launched, our locksmiths remained to work on it - on the main motor, on the pump. I was left on the last device minder." (V. Pepelyaev)
23. "We worked in two shifts, 12 hours a day without days off. Lunch was brought to work. Lunch is 0.5 liters of soup (water with black cabbage), 200 grams of oatmeal and 300 grams of bread. My job is to turn on the drum, tape and sit and watch everything spin and rock flow along the belt, and that's it. But sometimes something breaks - the belt can break, a stone gets stuck in the bunker, the pump fails or something. Then come on, come on! 10 days in the afternoon, ten - at night. During the day, of course, it’s easier. From the night shift, until you reach the zone, until you have breakfast, and as soon as you fall asleep - it’s already lunch, you lie down - check, and then dinner, and - to work. " (V. Pepelyaev)
24. “Eight flushing devices worked in the valley. They were mounted quickly, only the last, eighth, began to operate only before the end of the season. many holes and thick pins inside for crushing the incoming mixture of stones, mud, water and metal.Large stones flew into the dump - a growing hill of washed pebbles, and small particles with a stream of water supplied by the pump fell into a long inclined block, paved with grates, under which lay strips of cloth. Tin stone and sand settled on the cloth, and earth and pebbles flew out from the back of the block. Then the settled concentrates were collected and washed again - the extraction of cassiterite took place according to the gold mining scheme, but, naturally, by the amount of tin came across disproportionately more. " (P. Demant)
25. "Dneprovsky was not a new place. During the war, there was an ore site of the Kheta mine, located on the highway thirty kilometers away. When in the forty-fourth year tin for the state turned out to be less important than gold, the site was closed, the barracks soon came to unusability, the roads were overgrown with grass, and only in the forty-ninth, the mine workings were reactivated and, in addition, they began to open the landfills in order to wash the tin stone on the instruments. (P. Demant)
26. “There is almost no night here. The sun will just set and in a few minutes it will already come out almost nearby, and mosquitoes and midges are something terrible. While you are drinking tea or soup, several pieces will definitely fly into the bowl. pulled over the head, but they don't help much." (V. Pepelyaev)
27. "In the zone, all the barracks are old, slightly repaired, but there is already a medical unit, a drilling rig. A team of carpenters is building a new large barracks, a canteen and new towers around the zone. On the second day I was already taken to work. We, three people, were put on pit. This is a pit, above it is a gate like on wells. Two people work on the gate, pull out and unload a bucket - a large bucket made of thick iron (it weighs 60 kilograms), the third below loads what they blew up. Before lunch I worked on the gate, and we completely cleared the bottom of the pit. We came back from lunch, and then they already made an explosion - we have to pull it out again. I volunteered to load it myself, sat down on the tub and the guys slowly lowered me 6-8 meters down. I loaded the bucket with stones, the guys lifted it, and I suddenly felt ill, dizzy, weak, the shovel falls out of my hands, and I sat down in the tub and somehow shouted: “Come on!” Fortunately, I realized in time that I had been poisoned by the gases left after the explosion in the ground, under the stones. Having rested in the clean Kolyma air, I said to myself: “I won’t climb again!” I began to think how, in the conditions of the Far North, with sharply limited nutrition and the complete absence of freedom to survive and remain human? situation, weigh your options, think over actions. I recalled the words of Confucius: "A person has three ways: reflection, imitation and experience. The first is the most noble, but also difficult. The second is easy, and the third is bitter."
I have no one to imitate, there is no experience, which means that we must think, while relying only on ourselves. I decided to immediately start looking for people from whom you can get smart advice. In the evening I met a young Japanese man, an acquaintance from the Magadan shipment. He told me that he works as a mechanic in a team of machine operators (in a mechanical workshop), and that they are recruiting mechanics there - there is a lot of work to be done on the construction of industrial devices. He promised to talk about me with the foreman." (V. Pepelyaev)
28. “At the end of the summer, the “state of emergency” was the escape of three people from the working area. In derogation from the law, one was never returned: neither alive nor dead. I already wrote about the second: they brought the beaten man to the BUR, and then to the penal brigade. Zinchenko was the foreman there, who, they say, was some kind of executioner among the Germans. But here he ended badly. One fine night he was stabbed to death by a young prisoner. And he did it strictly according to camp laws: first he woke him up so that he knew why, then he killed him. and calmly went to the watch, handed over the knife. The regime was strengthened, machine guns appeared on the towers. Everyone is nervous, angry. Some, out of hopelessness, have thoughts of suicide. Frost, snow with wind. A desperate prisoner approaches the foreman and asks: "Do a good deed , here is an ax - chop off my fingers. I myself can’t, I don’t have enough courage, but you, I see, you can. I’ll say that myself. Put your hand on this log and turn away." He turned away, closed his eyes. The foreman turned the ax and hit two fingers with a butt, wrapped the poor fellow's hand in a rag and sent him to the zone. There he lay in the hospital for a couple of days and for 10 days he “turned over” in the zone, corrected himself and thanked the foreman for the cunning, for saving his hand. "(V. Pepelyaev)
29. “In the compressor room, in which two old tank engines and an American mobile compressor are installed, a crowd has gathered - convicts and free explosives. I go up - a short, thick-set old man is standing with his back to the wall. His forehead is covered in blood, his nose is broken. The old man threateningly brandishes a short crowbar. Three mechanics in oily overalls - the compressor attendants - are trying in vain to get close to him ... "(P. Demant)
30. “The medical unit is overcrowded, injuries at work have become more frequent - someone was crushed by a lump, who was hit by an explosion, and soon the first dead person is the cheerful Petro Golubev, who hoped to see his family soon. He died of jaundice, because there was no medicine and not enough sugar. He was taken away in a car (of course, a dump truck) behind the eighth device, where he became right-flanked, over time a whole cemetery grew behind him - a stake with a number on each grave. was powerless - they did not give medicines for "traitors to the motherland!" (P. Demant)
31. “A hundred steps from the office, also on a slope, a new building of the compressor room was white, behind it stood a large bunker, into which ore was poured from the sixth, richest adit. There the road turned behind the hill to the second section, where the ore was lowered along the bremsberg by trolleys. There was a well-marked pit near the bunker, we felt a little uneasy when we passed by: it was the exit of the fifth adit, which collapsed in April 1944, burying a whole brigade, according to stories, about thirty prisoners. (P. Demant)
32. "The first year at the mine was stormy and full of surprises. Geologists often got into trouble with forecasts, huge polygons did not always justify their hopes, but by chance people sometimes stumbled upon incredibly rich places. Freelancers scoured the polygons and often brought cassiterite nuggets weighing tens of kilograms, they were well paid for. Once a five-pound block hit the conveyor belt of the device. Zek, who mistook it for a simple stone and tried in vain to push it, stopped the tape. Unexpectedly, Grek turned out to be nearby, he took away the find in a dump truck, promising the foreman:
- I won't hurt you guys!
Soon Khachaturian appeared on the device and cursed the brigade for what it was worth:
- Idiots, gave away such a piece! I would feed you without a norm for a week, and even bring a smoke ...
The power was turned off, the guys sat on the conveyor and took turns smoking cigarettes made from cigarette butts.
“Could not have been otherwise, citizen chief,” said the brigadier. "(P. Demant)
33. “It’s a pity that I didn’t remember the names of many interesting people with whom I was in the camp. I don’t even remember the name of the head of the camp. Only his nickname is “Literally.” I remember it because he inserted this word where it was necessary and not necessary. he was also remembered because he really cared about the life of the prisoners in the camp. Under him, they built good barracks without common bunk beds, but with separate ones, for 4 people; also a spacious bath-laundry, a kitchen, a dining room. , sometimes concerts, a brass band... All this distracted us a little from the terrible reality. Near the exit from the camp on a large stand with the name "When will this end?" various shortcomings in the work of the camp were reported, and, I remember, every time, passing by, quite legally, I said loudly: “When will this end?” (V. Pepelyaev)
34. “The entire hill opposite the office was covered with waste rock extracted from the bowels. The mountain seemed to be turned inside out, from the inside it was brown, made of sharp rubble, the dumps did not fit into the surrounding greenery of the dwarf forest, which had covered the slopes for thousands of years and was destroyed in one fell swoop for the sake of mining gray, heavy metal, without which not a single wheel turns - tin. Everywhere on the dumps, near the rails stretched along the slope, near the compressor room, small figures in blue working overalls with numbers on the back, above the right knee and on the cap were swarming. we tried to get out of the cold adit, the sun warmed especially well today - it was the beginning of June, the brightest summer. (P. Demant)
35. “March 1953 came. The mournful all-Union whistle caught me at work. I left the room, took off my hat and prayed to God, thanked for delivering the Motherland from the tyrant. They say that someone was worried, wept. If before Stalin's death they punished those whose number came off, now it has become the other way around - those who have not had their numbers removed were not allowed into the camp from work.
Changes have begun. They removed the bars from the windows, did not lock the barracks at night: walk around the zone wherever you want. In the dining room they began to give bread without a norm, how much is cut on the tables - take so much. They also put a large barrel with red fish - chum salmon, the kitchen began to bake donuts (for money), butter and sugar appeared in the stall. The head of the regime (Estonians called him “the head of the press”) walks around the zone - he smiles, he probably has nothing to do, nothing to punish for. Some convicts with Article 58 began to use thieves' jargon with apparent pleasure, inserting the words "chernukha", "slop", "swing", "ass" into the conversation ...
There was a rumor that our camp would be mothballed and closed. And, indeed, soon the reduction of production began, and then - according to small lists - stages. Many of ours, including myself, ended up in Chelbanya. It is very close to the big center - Susuman." (V. Pepelyaev)
36. These are such extraordinary stories that make you almost shudder and marvel at the inhuman resilience of people who managed to survive all this hell. 
37. Only the remnants of buildings carried away by the inexorable passage of time are still visible to rare guests.
38. Like threads of old clothes - smoldering and dissolving on the motionless bodies of the hills.
39. By the way, it's amazing - what bizarre structures were created by local architects, using almost one tree! For example, there once was an elevator leading to the mine.
40. But everything is gradually disappearing, closing one of the saddest pages of our history.
41. And only the silent nature remains the same.
42.
Like this. To be continued!
The Serpantinka death camp was the site of mass executions throughout 1938, as the liquidation center of the Northern Directorate.
In Serpantinka, death sentences were carried out by tribunal troikas for the prisoners of Kolyma. Torture was used in the camp. Execution orders were read out almost every day, and the number of those executed - convicted under Article 58 - sometimes reached a hundred a day. Here were destroyed about 30 thousand people. Serpantinka was empty after the execution of Yezhov ...
The executed were buried in long trenches, serpentine surrounding the nearby hills. The rationalization was that the soil from the upper trench was dumped into the lower one, where the dead were already located, and therefore, the digging of the upper ditches coincided with the digging of the lower ones, that is, the churchyards were essentially pyramidal cemeteries.
There were several such places of execution in Dalstroy: in the Northern Directorate - Khatynny, in the Western - "Maldyak". Mass graves in Kolyma, in addition to Serpantinka, were in Orotukan, at the Polyarny, Svistoplyas and Annushka springs, the Golden mine. Executions were also carried out in Magadan and its environs.
The camp was remembered in the 80s, when gold mining began here. However, along with the rock, teeth, bones and bullets began to fall onto the washing conveyor. The miners refused to work here, and gold mining was stopped. "Nothing has survived from the prison now. Serpantinka entered the Kolyma history with its special function: here they gave out a term by weight - they shot. In the Sniper stream, you can still find cartridges and bullets that were brought to execution of death sentences, and even stumble upon human bones.
Mining - killing by labor
Newly arriving prisoners in Kolyma were allowed to be released from work for the first 2-3 days, and then - within a month to give them underestimated more than three times the norms of output. This is how production acclimatization should have taken place. In addition, in January they had to work at the face for 4 hours (polar day and frosts under 50), in February - six, in March - seven. The entire washing season (i.e., when the water is water, not snow or ice), the prisoners were supposed to work for 10 hours.However, these provisions have never been observed in practice. The prisoners were included in the work from the first day at "full capacity". During shock days, weeks and "Stakhanov" months, when the plan had to be given at any cost, the head of the camp could lengthen the work shift as much as he wanted. Working days became the norm at 12, and at 14, and at 16 o'clock. Taking into account the checks, breakfast, lunch and dinner, the prisoners had 4 hours to sleep.
The heads of camps and camps were not afraid of any penalties for violations of established norms. Because they knew that the life of a prisoner was worth nothing and the loss of one or more lives would cost no more than the loss of clothing allowance. Norms of metal washing remained difficult to meet. So, in 1941, everyone, regardless of position (a prisoner, camp workers, camp servants), was obliged to pan from 3 to 8 grams of gold per day. The rule was mandatory. Failure to comply, if it was recognized as malicious, qualified as sabotage and was punishable up to and including execution.
To stimulate the work of prisoners in overburden and transshipment work, mining and washing of sand and in road construction, from the middle of 1938 new norms for offsetting working days were introduced. Those who fulfilled the norms by 100% were counted 46 days, by 105% - 92 days, by 110% - 135 days. (The term was reduced so much. Soon all tests were canceled). The category of nutrition also depended on the percentage of compliance with the norms. For article 58, the last weekend was cancelled. The summer working day was brought to 14 hours, frosts of 45 and 50 degrees were recognized as suitable for work. Cancel work was allowed only from 55 degrees. However, at the arbitrariness of individual chiefs, they were also taken out at minus 60.
Soon, a new way of confinement appeared - hard labor. The Bolsheviks, who accused "damned tsarism" of slavery, were in fact much worse. The convicts worked in special camps, in chains, and without mattresses or blankets at night. Nobody survived.
Even in the first weeks of Kolyma's short summer, the death rate went through the roof. Often this happened unexpectedly, sometimes even during work. A person who was pushing a wheelbarrow up a high rise could suddenly stop, sway for a while, and fall from a height of 7-10 meters. And that was the end. Or the person who loaded the wheelbarrow, urged on by the shouts of the foreman or the guard, suddenly sank to the ground. Blood bubbled up from his throat - and it was all over.
People also suffered from hunger. But everyone worked as usual - 12 hours a day. Exhausted by long years of half-starved existence and inhuman labor, people gave their last strength to labor. And they were dying.
Pre-trial detention center - murder by "law"
What was this pre-trial detention center, where the entire "investigation" was based on the presumption of guilt? Once a month or two mobile military tribunals arrived at the Shturmovaya mine from Magadan, constantly running through all the Dalstroy camps, which then stretched from Chukotka to the Khabarovsk Territory inclusive. Two or three officers of the NKVD closed up for the night in the building of the camp VOKhR, took out army flasks with alcohol, stew and, periodically cheering themselves up with another portion of alcohol, spent the whole night busy with the camp file. Their work was reminiscent of the culling of the collective farm herd, with the only difference being that it was carried out in absentia and in relation to the human working "livestock". First of all, political expenses went to the expense, and secondly, they looked at age - the older, the more likely they are to become suicide bombers. Then the cases of those prisoners who had ceased to give out the daily allowance were selected, in other words, the cases of "goal". In order to maintain the appearance of "pluralism", a dozen thieves were included in the list of suicide bombers. The justification for the "tower" was the verdicts of this very tribunal. Their "genre" was directly dependent on the amount of alcohol drunk or the officer's fantasies: "To sentence to VMN for sabotage, expressed in the breakdown of a wheelbarrow ..." or "... for trying to smuggle a consignment of gold to Mexico to Trotsky", but most often they wrote universal stereotyped sentences: "for counter-revolutionary Trotskyist activities in a correctional labor institution."In the morning, officers with red eyes from alcohol and a sleepless night left the camp, and at the divorce, a list of those who should return to the barracks and wait for the command was read out. All the rest, under escort, were taken to objects. In the camp, routine work began. Each prisoner, whose fate had already been decided, first had to hand over state-owned things: a towel, work gloves, etc., to the supply room according to the list. The sentenced were collected in a storage pen and, when the last of them reported on clothing allowance, they were led to be shot. As a rule, a kilometer or two from the camp.
Alexander Chernov, who worked in a small team digging pits, once witnessed the execution of about 70 prisoners near the Nizhny Shturmovoi camp in the valley of the stream, which the locals gave the name Svistoplyas. People were led into a narrow canyon in a column, ordered to stop, after which the guards with dogs left the column? and the machine gunners, who had previously settled down on both slopes of the gorge, took up the "case". The "dance of death" lasted no more than 10-15 minutes, after which the guards busily finished off the wounded and dumped the corpses into the nearby pits. Officially, the stream is called Chekay. Ukrainian geologists, who discovered it in 1931, by right of pioneers, gave it the romantically funny name Chekay, which means “Wait a minute” in Russian. In order to avoid the further stench from human remains decomposing near the camps, the NKVD centralized the execution base, building for this a special prison - a place of execution - on the Sniper stream, quite corresponding in name.
Executioners
One of the main reasons for the removal of the first head of Dalstroy, Eduard Berzin, was the relatively high cost of a gram of Kolyma gold. His successors, especially Garanin, brought the cost of a gram of gold to a record low price. Between the heads of the mining departments of the country there was even an unspoken private competition: whose gram is cheaper. After Berzin, Dalstroy was in the lead here. True, the Magadan Bay of Nagaev barely had time to receive steamships with live cargo in the holds, since the "muscular" method of metal mining needed only the strong muscles of fresh slaves, those who were "worn out" were waiting for the knackers nicknamed Serpantinka.Berzin was replaced by Garanin, who launched a campaign of terror in Kolyma, maniacal even on the scale of the NKVD. Garaninshchina was marked by torture and executions. Only in the special camp Serpantinka Garanin shot in 1938 about 26 thousand people. Arriving at the camp, he ordered to line up "refuseees from work" - usually they were sick and "goal". An enraged Garanin walked along the line and shot people at close range. Two guards walked behind and alternately loaded his pistols.
In Serpantinka, 30-50 people were shot a day in a barn. The corpses were dragged over the embankments on motorized sleds. There was another method: blindfolded prisoners were driven into deep trenches and shot in the back of the head. Serpantinka victims sometimes waited several days to be shot. They stood in a cell, several people per square meter. meter, without being able to even move his hands. The one that, when they were given water, throwing pieces of ice at them - they tried to catch it with their mouths.
How much gold Kolyma gave can be imagined from the Vodopyanov mine closest to Serpantinka. From the 34th to the 45th years, according to the data found, this enterprise produced 66.8 tons of gold. And only Dalstroy had at least a hundred such mines.
In 1938, Garanin, as was the custom then, was himself declared a spy and went to the camps. He died in Pechorlag in 1950.
Memories of prisoners
According to the memoirs of Moses Vygon:Serpantinka was a gloomy gorge, in the middle of which the Kolyma highway meandered like a snake. One of the winding sections of the pass inherited this name. It was a dead-end gorge, where in the mid-30s a secret NKVD facility appeared, surrounded by a high fence of planks. Doomed prisoners were brought there, escorted by a pack of vicious dogs, specially trained to attack people at the first order of the guards. After some time, the whole of Kolyma learned about the existence, one and a half kilometers from Khatynnakh, of the Serpantinka execution prison, where death sentences were carried out by troikas led by the executioner Garanin, the deputy head of Dalstroy.
One prisoner recalls:
“...During the long journey upstairs, we passed several long barracks of an unpleasant appearance, standing not far from the road. At one time, these barracks were used during construction and were called Serpantinka, but after the completion of work on the road to Khateny, they had been empty for a year. I remember a few days ago, by order from Magadan, Serpantinka was turned into a closed section of the NKVD, to which two brigades were sent for some kind of secret business. For some reason, a small camp was fenced with three rows of barbed wire, a guard stood every 20 meters. A spacious house for employees and guards was built, as well as garages. What surprised me the most was the garages. It was unusual to build garages in such a small camp as this, especially considering that only 5 kilometers away were the large garages of the Khatenach camp and the Vodopyanovsky gold mines. Later I learned that two tractors were placed in them, the engines of which roared enough to drown out the shots and screams of people ... "
Another prisoner describes a specific case:
“...These skeletons couldn't work. Brigadier Dyukov asked for better nutrition. The director refused. The exhausted group heroically tried to meet the norm, but failed. Everyone turned against Dyukov ... Dyukov made more and more active complaints and protests. The production of his group fell and fell, and their diets fell accordingly. Dyukov tried to negotiate with management. And it, in turn, denounced Dyukov and his people to certain services, so that they included them in the ‘lists’. Dyukov and his brigade were shot in Serpantinka...
The camp commanders could do whatever they wanted. Some shot prisoners from time to time to intimidate others. On one occasion, prisoners who, after 14 hours in the mine, could not continue their work, were shot and their bodies were left lying for a day as a warning. Food was getting worse, rations were getting smaller, output was dropping, and executions for sabotage became common...”
Memories of the atrocities of the guards and the heads of the camps:
“... in Debin, in 1951, three detachment prisoners who were allowed to go to the forest to pick berries did not return. When the bodies were found, their heads were beaten off with rifle butts, and the head of the camp, Senior Lieutenant Lomada, dragged their bodies past the assembled prisoners in such a state ...
... The detachment went to capture the escaped prisoners. Under the command of the young Colonel Postnikov. Intoxicated with the thirst for murder, he carried out his mission with passion and zeal. He personally killed 5 people. As usual in such cases, he was encouraged and received an award. For the living and the dead caught, the reward was the same. There was no need to bring a live prisoner.
... One August morning, a prisoner who came to get drunk in the river fell into a trap set by Postnikov and his soldiers. Postnikov shot him with a revolver. They did not begin to drag the body to the camp, but threw it into the taiga, where traces of wolves and bears were everywhere.
As "proof of capture," Postnikov chopped off the prisoner's hands with an axe. He put his severed hands in his knapsack and went to collect his reward... At night the "corpse" stood up. Holding his bleeding wrists to his chest, he left the taiga and returned to the prisoners' tent. With a pale face, crazy blue eyes, he looked inside, standing in the doorway, clinging to the doorway and whispering something. He had a fever. His torn jacket, pants, rubber boots - everything was soaked in black blood.
The inmates gave him warm soup, wrapped his bleeding wrists in rags, and took him to the hospital. But here are Postnikov's people from their small tent. The soldiers grabbed the prisoner. And no one else heard of him ... "
According to materials:
"Kolyma: Arctic Death Camps" by Robert Conquest
Varlaam Shalamov
In the thirties, fifty correctional camps were founded in Kolyma. In the fifties, they became ordinary villages, in which the descendants of former prisoners lived for another half a century. Now they cease to exist. About how one of these villages was born and died, we were told by the sons of the prisoners of the Elgen women's camp.
Fifteen years ago, a school was closed in the village of Elgen, Magadan Region. Lika Timofeevich Morozov, walking along the street, saw the remains of a fire. He came closer and recognized school magazines in the burnt scraps of paper. I figured out where the rest might be, ran there and managed to pick up 150 magazines with personal files and photographs. In 2008, the village was frozen. He, as the former chairman of the executive committee, and then the head of the administration, was the last to leave.
Now there are almost no villages left in Kolyma, the history of this place is scattered throughout the country along with people. But it is important for the locals to preserve at least something, to collect, to give shape to history and pass it on to generations. Viktor Sadilov wrote more than 30 stories about the life of Elgen and its inhabitants. Lika Timofeevich has been restoring names from documents saved in a fire for the last ten years, collecting photographs, finding these people and sending them: from Sakhalin to Ussuriysk, so that they remember.
Both Victor and Lika were born in Elgen, one of the largest women's camps, where their mother served time.
Villages of Kolyma / Photo Sergey Filinin
"Elgen": women's camp at the end of the world
The development of Kolyma began in the 30s of the last century. The main task of Dalstroy was to get as much gold and other minerals as possible. It was also planned to use the camps for further settlement and use of previously uninhabited territories of the USSR. In total, there were fifty settlements in Kolyma, and all were camps.
The women's camp "Elgen" appeared in 1934. They solved two problems at once: they opened a state farm to feed the constantly arriving prisoners, and isolated women from men.
The sons of imprisoned women write in their memoirs that it was really necessary to isolate, because “love made its way with indestructible sprouts even on the harsh northern land”, “extraordinary situations arose”, “up to outbreaks of venereal diseases”. The prisoners themselves have other memories.
Writer Olga Adamova-Sliozberg in the book "The Way" described both harassment from superiors, and blackmail, when easier conditions were offered for relationships or sex, and gang rape. For example, she wrote about the foreman Sashka Sokolov, who took young women to a separate “fun” tent and sold them to guards and prisoners. He deceived one of those who refused: he said that her boyfriend had arranged a surprise for her. Instead of him, a crowd of prisoners was waiting for her in the house, to whom Sashka sold her. She returned to the camp three days later, the authorities punished her for absenteeism, and as a result she went to the “fun” tent. Sliozberg once tried to complain about the foreman, but he was engaged in "business" together with the head of security. In the end, she was glad that the case at least remained without progress, and did not turn into an extension of her term or murder for her.
Gang rape was so widespread that the term was coined for it: “And the woman in Kolyma? After all, there it is completely rare, there it is completely snapped up and bursting. There, do not come across a woman on the highway - even an escort, even a freeman, even a prisoner. In Kolyma, the expression "tram" for gang rape was born. K. O. tells how the driver lost them at cards - a whole truckload of women being transported to Elgen - and, turning off the road, brought them to construction workers unescorted for the night.
At the same time, Elgen was still a “resort” for many prisoners, because working at the agricultural base meant working in warmth. In addition, the camp was located practically in a swamp, so for a long time there were no fences and barbed wire in it - there was nowhere to run.
True, as the state farm expanded deep into undeveloped territories, women had to adapt to a new problem: bears. In the wilderness downstream of the Tuscany, a dairy farm and poultry house were built. So bears came to him every night: they were attracted by the smell of seal carcasses, which fed the birds. Victor Sadilov says that at night the women had to close up all the entrances and exits, like in a submarine, and wait until the morning.
Mine Dneprovskiy / Photo Sergey Filinin Get to Elgen and survive
Viktor Sadilov's father, Alexander, was born in the village of Chufarovo, Nizhny Novgorod province, in July 1904. He graduated from the four classes of the parochial school and immediately plunged into rural working life, "without complaining about fate and without building sweet illusions for the future." At seventeen he was married. He himself did not want to marry: two hefty young men were led down the aisle so that he would not run away. So the parents wanted to keep their son from escaping to the war, because the eldest had already fled.
Alexander joined the army, but later, already in relatively peacetime. He finished his service as a commander of a machine-gun platoon with a bunch of thanks and awards and returned home to the village to his wife as a hero.
For a creative approach to work in 1935, Alexander was sent to Moscow for the All-Union Congress of Collective Farm Shock Workers. “The solemn atmosphere of the congress, the pomposity of decoration and the grandeur of the Kremlin interiors struck me on the spot. The scale of the event promised some kind of turning point in life, new career heights and great deeds were dreamed of. The chairman of the collective farm, recently admitted to the party, saw with his own eyes all the might and strength of the country. When he saw Stalin himself for the first time, he was breathless with delight and excitement. What is happening is almost devoid of reality. Here she is! The story itself breathes in the face of a simple peasant! ”Victor writes in a story about his father. In 1937, at one of the meetings, Alexander, criticizing the authorities from the district, would say: "The fish rots from the head." It will seem to his accusers that he was pointing to the portrait of the leader. He will be given 9 years in the camps followed by disqualification for 5 years.
Alexander reached Kolyma in October 1938. The liberal rule of Eduard Berzin in Dalstroy had already ended by this time, and Alexander was not happy with the stories about the new routines. In addition to the cold, most of the people in Kolyma were killed by the then-formed system of rations - how much you worked, so much you get. For example, Olga Adamova-Sliozberg later wrote that after five years of almost no movement in prison, she and other “newcomers” looked forward to the first working day in Kolyma as a holiday. But when they were sent to dig a trench, they completed only 3% of the norm per person for the whole day.
Sliozberg herself was serving her sentence in another camp, she couldn’t get into Elgen: the healthy and strong were selected there, and by this time she had already planted her health so much that she didn’t have the strength to pretend to be cheerful even for a couple of minutes while the boss looked at her.
The worst thing for the prisoners was to get to the extraction of lime or gold. Sliezberg once washed dishes in the river, and gold settled in the plate. She called everyone to look, but the only man in the company - a huge Prokhorov with hands “the size of a chest of drawers” - abruptly interrupted their joy, said loudly that this was not gold, and threw everything back. Later he came up and told her: “Well, then you are a fool. Educated but stupid. So why do you need gold? We live here, we mow hay. And if they find gold - do you know how many people will be maimed? Have you seen how they work at the mine? Is your man not there? Do not you know? Maybe the gold has been in the pit for a long time. One season a person on gold can work out and - the end.
Camp unit at the mine / Photo by Sergey Filinin Alexander ended up at a woodworking plant. Men were not accommodated in Elgen itself. The plant was located downstream, it had its own barracks town. Alexander, who had just arrived, witnessed a terrible situation:
“Komsomol members of the village neighboring Elgen arranged a ski run, which they dedicated to the next anniversary of the Great October Revolution. Either the connection did not work, or the organizers made a mistake, only at our checkpoint they forgot to warn the guards about the event. Here the vigilant fighters noticed the approaching detachment of skiers in twilight illumination and, under the impression of strict instructions and themselves obsessed with "proletarian vigilance", decided to take up battle with the "fugitives". The ending was terrible and tragic. Komsomol members from the neighboring village of Mylgi perished under the lead rain of vigilant guards.
Death was not a rare occurrence in Kolyma at all. Bodies like firewood were stacked on top of each other during the winter in the women's camp. In early spring, they were loaded onto tractor sleds and taken to the other side of the Tuscany to be buried: they were dumped into a ditch and covered with improvised garbage, so long as the limbs did not stick out. Alexander told his son that once he also had to lie down in the same pile with the bodies: “I was walking along the road to Elgen, a distance of twenty versts, did not calculate my strength and fell exhausted in the middle of the way. There were many business trips in the valley, and the authorities returned to the camp after the detour. They picked up the body, brought it to the watch and dumped it in a general pile. Whether he lay there for a long time or not, it was only to his luck that starley Lugovskoy passed by and was surprised that a fresh corpse threw his hand into the passage. A man accustomed to, he did not lose his composure and, going to the watch, threateningly asked why a living person was thrown out to the dead. The oversight was immediately corrected by dragging the body to the medical unit. Since then, my father's toenails have been mutilated - he froze, ”Viktor told the story of his father.
His mother went to the camps in 1948. A year before, she was carrying 15 sacks of grain on a cart, she imperceptibly dropped one into the bushes, so that they would later return and pick it up: in a large peasant family, her younger brother was dying of starvation. When they found him and the arrest was already inevitable, she did not remain silent. For the phrase “you are stealing cars here, and we are dying of hunger,” she was soldered both theft and an attempt on Soviet power. They gave me five years. She was 24 years old, less than a year ago she had a daughter.
She gave birth to Victor in 1950: judging by the total number of pregnancies in the women's camp, his isolation function did not work.
In 1939, this issue already required an immediate solution, and the authorities ordered the construction of a "children's plant". He worked for almost sixty years until he burned down.
In another way, the plant was also called the baby's house, and the children were there until they were three years old. If by this time the mothers did not finish their term, the children were sent to a boarding school.
Lika Timofeevich and Viktor Sadilov stayed with their mothers only because they managed to free themselves before they were sent to boarding schools.
Residential village in Kolyma / Photo by Sergey Filinin Lika Timofeevich Morozov was born in 1950. He knows nothing about his father. Why his Moldavian mother ended up in the camps, he also does not know. She says she didn't like talking about it very much.
Lika received his surname and patronymic from his stepfather. He ended up in Kolyma in 1938 "for Trotskyist activities", he was then 23. Ten years later he was released, stayed to work, met Lika's mother and adopted him. He already remembers Elgen as an ordinary Soviet village with a youth club where they watched films on a projector.
Victor Sadilov in his stories describes this period as follows:
“And changes followed, at first reluctantly, as if with a creak, but gaining momentum year by year. The attitude of the guards towards the prisoners began to noticeably change, they began to pay attention to the needs and requirements. They remembered that a woman with a child has special rights and benefits, and it is not human to separate mother and child. And the replenishment of the women's camp with new personnel began to noticeably dry up.
And four years after Stalin's death, the very existence of this sad institution lost its meaning and relevance. Thus, in 1957, OLP, a special camp point, ceased to exist in Elgen. The liquidation took place calmly, without celebrations and fireworks. Mindful of the dark years of the camp, Elgen adapted to the new conditions of existence. The vacated objects began to be adapted for the needs of production and everyday life. A number of divisions and business trips have been reduced.
In the early fifties, the administrative and economic structure of the entire region underwent grandiose changes. The Magadan region was born, separating from the giant - the Khabarovsk Territory. The region acquired districts, each district has its own administrative center.
"Detkombinat" has long been a thing of the past, and the building was given over to apartments. The kindergarten, located near the "director's" house, no longer accommodated the influx of kids, and therefore a new complex of three buildings was built. So there was a whole microdistrict called "Children's Town". Then they opened a new school, and the issue with the younger generation was resolved for many years.”
Abandoned village of Karmaken / Photo by Sergey Filinin Elgen's death: "I realized that we are a skiff"
Lika just finished eight grades at this school. There was no more there, so on the ninth day he went to a boarding school in the village of Yagodnoye. He did not like it there, he returned to Elgen and went to work - to the state farm as a car mechanic. He was 17.
“Already in 1968 we had the first ninth grade. And we, the older guys, were all removed from work and sent to the same class to fill the required number of students,” says Lika. “I finished the ninth grade in Elgen, in the tenth grade we went to the neighboring village of Ust-Taskan.”
Then everything also went according to plan: evening school, college, a second marriage, until one of the holidays in 1982, Lika ran into an instructor at the door of the district party committee. He offered him the position of chairman of the executive committee.
The first time Lika Morozov worked for three years, then he could not stand it. I could not come to terms with the new style of work: “How can you make any report on any topic without getting up from your chair?”. He left in 1985 and worked for 7 years as a production equipment foreman. But it seems that at the top he was not forgiven for such a departure, so in 1992 he received an order in which he was already listed as the head of the administration of the village of Elgen. And this punishment is because his task immediately became clear - to resettle three villages and close them. In the same year, 265 people left Elgen alone in one summer, and another 1,500 remained.
“Since 1992, when I came as the head of the administration, I realized that we are a skiff. Because that year the neighboring village of Energetikov was closed, and there was a huge coal station in it, which provided for us. Then Vladimir Pekhtin came to me in 1997. He was then the head of KolymaEnergo. He came with a proposal to transfer the state farm as a subsidiary farm of KolymaEnergo. Naturally, they came and took away everything that could be taken away: equipment, livestock. And then they said, "We don't need you." And we began to fall apart: there was no equipment, the fields were overgrown, and people began to leave. In 1999 they closed the kindergarten and grades 10-11 at the school, it was finally closed in 2003. At the same time, our electricity was turned off. And there is no light - the boiler house does not work, the water intake does not work. And until 2008, we carried water several kilometers from the river, Morozov recalls. - I most of all felt sorry for the first people leaving - they left for their own money. Since 1993, the head of the administration has made financial assistance, but also a penny. Only since 2006, it was possible to get 2 million for the purchase of housing, but a person has already got there, maybe a hundred.
The Morozov family was the last to leave, in 2008. Now in the village of Elgen there are several families who refused to leave, and a couple of business travelers at the weather station.
According to Lika Timofeevich, people from Kolyma did not want to leave: when one village was closed, they moved to the next one. So Anna Pavlovna, born in 1914, left the village of Energetikov and later changed more than one village. She was already persuaded to leave: they say, there is no water, there is nothing, as much as possible! She answered: “I’ll live until I’m 90 and leave.” Lived up and left. She died in 2007. Once she drove steamships, carried coal to that station.
Abandoned camp Razvilochny / Photo by Sergey Filinin Memory of Kolyma
Now Lika Timofeevich Morozov lives in his wife's homeland, in Syzran. Our interview with him immediately does not go according to plan: I did not ask a single question, and he made the first pause after forty minutes. He listed whom he found from Elgen and with whom he communicates, using only a phone and e-mail, which is controlled by his daughter in Ulyanovsk.
“I try to collect photographs for each class. I didn’t have a single photo of my class, but I found ten classmates, and now I call them, asking who has what - they send it to me.
Restored the students of our school, starting with those who went to school in 1949. I got 2000 people. Restored the list of teachers, almost all: 70 people. All directors of the school and in general the majority of the inhabitants of the village of Elgen until 1963. I know everyone: who came when, who came from where, what he worked for, where he lived, etc. Separately, those who were born in Elgen are on the list.
A year before I left the village, I was visited by television from the Czech Republic. Vanya Panikarov calls and says that he is going to Elgen Czech, he was born there. I don't know how his mother got there. One of the camp buildings was still standing then: we walked around, reminisced. He found nothing there, of course. When they told me his last name, I quickly went to the registry office, found his birth certificate and waited for him to visit. And a little later, the adopted daughter of Evgenia Ginzburg, Antonina Aksenova, came to me. They also walked around Elgen with her, talked, I told her what I could. Vanya Panikarov brings everyone to me. I don't know where he gets them."
Vanya Panikarov is a former plumber who later became Kolyma's chief chronicler. He initiated the creation of the Search for Illegally Repressed Society, manages the Kolyma Memory Museum, publishes the Memory Archives book series, in which he publishes the memoirs and works of Gulag prisoners.
We contacted him at an inconvenient time - now he is on another expedition to Magadan, but he was able to send us the materials that we used in this article.
Together with Lika Morozov and Viktor Sadilov, each in their own way, they are engaged in the restoration and preservation of information about the Kolyma camps, its prisoners and residents of the villages after the liquidation of the Gulag.
Last year, Panikarov won a presidential grant for the Memory of Kolyma project. Here is what he wrote in the application:
“I am not a leader, not a professor, not a scientist, however, having been studying the history of the region for more than 30 years, I know something about the Kolyma land, and in every possible way, often in spite of the regional authorities, I do what people, Kolyma residents need. And we managed to do a lot - to announce competitions in the media on historical and local history topics, to publish the newspaper "Wonderful Planet", to publish books about the history of the region and memories of former prisoners about Kolyma, to carry out expeditions to the remnants of the camps, including with schoolchildren ... And all this was done for… foreign grants… Times are different now: it is “dangerous” to win foreign grants, because you immediately become an “agent of a foreign state”, i.e., a spy, and there are not so many Russian grant givers. Yes, and the years are not the same, although I still call a spade a spade and try to benefit the region and people. And even if there is no grant, all the activities planned in the application will still be implemented, though not within a year, but over a longer period of time.”
In early February 1932, the leadership of Dalstroy, headed by Eduard Berzin, arrived in Nagaev Bay, and in June-July, ships began to deliver prisoners en masse.
At the beginning of July, on the 32nd, near the Magadanka River (on the site of the current Proletarskaya Street), a "chintz town" appeared and subsequently became the prototype of the city under construction. Volunteers then settled in 60 tents ... But it was at this time that Berzin, having created the basis of Dalstroy, went to Moscow with his plan for the colonization of Kolyma and the construction of Magadan.
By his order, the first camps appeared in the Dukcha region. It was they who became the beginning of USVITL - the Office of the North-Eastern Correctional Labor Camps. 
In the blog tour at the Dneprovsky mine. Dmitry's photo dimabalakirev
Balakirev
This time I will not talk about the reasons for the creation of the Gulag in the USSR and the number of prisoners who died in Kolyma. I will only say that their name is legion. And, in order to imagine what kind of land we walk on, I suggest that readers go on a journey through ... camp places. The description does not include Chukotka and Ust-Nera; data are given for the largest camps.
Berlag
Organized 02/28/48, closed 06/25/54 - all camp units transferred to USVITL.
The administrative center is Motley Dresva in Shelikhov Bay, the name is "Coast Camp".
Production: underground and surface work at enterprises of mining departments, including maintenance of the Yanskoye GPU; mining plants with mines of the same name and processing plants attached to them (named after Belov, "Butugychag", "Khenikandzha", No. 2 of the Tenkinsky GPU, named after Lazo, "Alyaskitovy" of the Indigirskiy GPU), the Omsukchansky mining plant with the Galimy mine and the processing plant -koy, Uta gold mining plant with the mines "Cold", "Quarts" and the site "Petrovich"; cobalt plant "Canyon", mines and mines with processing plants ("Dneprovsky" and named after Chapaev, named after Matrosov (in 1949-1950 - named after Beria), mines: named after Gorky and "Chelbanya".
Berlag prisoners also served the objects of the First Directorate of Dalstroy in Magadan; builds. objects of the State Trust "Kolymsnab", "Promzhilstroy", the department of local building materials, SMU and the communications department, carried out repair, logging work, built housing in Magadan.
Number:
1948 - 20 758;
1949 - 15 3787;
1950 - 23 906;
1951 - 28 716;
1952 - 31 489;
1953 - 24 431;
1954 - 20 508.
Enrichment factory named after Chapaev.
Zaplug
Organized 09/20/49, closed 12/30/56.
The administrative center is the village of Susuman.
Production: work at the gold mines "Komsomolets", "Stakhanovets", "Frolich", "Otporny", "Hidden", "Bolshevik", "Central", "Wide", "Belichan" (former "Kuronakh"), them. Chkalov, "Perspective", "Lenkovy", at the tin mines "Kurbelli" and "Barylliella", at the enrichment plant of the deposit "Kurbelli", expansion of mines and enrichment plants at the deposits "Kurbelli" and "Barylliella", extraction of tin ore at the mines " Nadezhda", "Central" and "Otporny", work at the gold mines. Chkalova, "Kontrandya", "Drummer", "Chelbanya", agricultural work at the state farm "Susuman", maintenance of the Susuman rem. plant and car depot, builds. and road construction, logging, construction and maintenance of a brick factory in Susuman.
Number:
1951 - 16 585;
1952 - 14 471;
1953 - 9708.
ITL "Promzhilstroy"
Organized between 09/01/51 and 05/20/52, closed after 01/01/54. Reorganized no earlier than 05/20/52 - from LO to ITL;
Production: industrial, housing and road construction, work at a sawmill, a brick factory, a stone quarry.
Number:
1952 - 31644.
Muggle
Organized no later than 02/01/51, closed 06/13/56.
Production: agricultural work, wood and logging, brick making, maintenance of the municipal economy, industrial complex, food processing plant, car repair work, maintenance of the Magadan railway, the Baby House. In 1951, conscripts worked in Magadan at more than 200 sites, including the construction of the city party committee, the editorial office of the Sovetskaya Kolyma newspaper, the House of Pioneers, etc.
Number:
1951 - 13 6042;
1952 - 9401;
1953 - 4756.
Sevlag
Organized 09/20/49, closed 04/16/57.
Administrative center - pos. Berry (now Berry).
Production: work at the mines "Burhala", "Calm", "Stormovoy", "Foggy", "Khatynnakh", "Upper At-Uryakh", "Debin", "Upper Debin", "Tangara", "Gorny", "Myakit" .
Number:
1951 - 15 802;
1952 - 11 683;
1953 - 9071;
1954 - 8430.
The village of Maldyak. Photo by Evgeny drs_radchenko
Sevvostlag
Organized 04/01/32, closed no earlier than 09/20/49 and no later than 05/20/52.
The administrative center - first, from 01.04.32, pos. Srednikan (now Ust-Srednekan), then - the city of Magadan.
The largest and most important camp in Kolyma. Reorganized several times. The ITL already listed above were "poured" into it.
Production: servicing the work of the Dalstroy trust: development, prospecting and exploration of gold deposits in the Olsko-Seimchansky district, construction of the Kolyma highway, gold mining in the Kolyma and Indigirka basins; development of several dozen mines and mines - "Stormovoy", "Pyatiletka", "Drummer", "Maldyak", "Tea-Urya", "Jubilee", them. Timoshenko… Prospecting and exploration in the Kolymo-Tenkinsky, Kulinsky, Suksukansky, Deras-Yuneginsky and Verkhne-Orotukansky tin-bearing districts (including associated mining at the Butugychag, Kinzhal, Pasmurny primary deposits and placer - "Butugychag" and "Taiga"). You can continue indefinitely. The entire Kolyma and Chukotka were under the control of the Sevvostlag.
In addition, the construction and maintenance of a number of thermal power plants (Arkagalinsky, Magadansky, Pevekskaya, Iultinskaya, Tenkinskaya, Khandygskaya, etc.), the construction of a hydroelectric power station on Jack London Lake, and a highway to Tenka. narrow gauge railway Magadan-Palatka, work at VNII-1 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, construction of airfields, shipbuilding and ship repair plants in Kolyma and in the bay. Nagaev, housing and household construction in Magadan ...
Number:
1932 - 11 100;
1934 - 29 659;
1938 - 90 741;
1939 - 138170;
1940 - 190 309;
1945 - 87 3358;
1948 - 106 893;
1950 - 131 773;
1951 - 157 001;
1952 -170 557.
Shadowlag
Organized 09/20/49, closed 06/29/56. Administrative center - pos. Ust-Omchug.
Production: work at the mines "Gvardeets", them. Gastello, them. Voroshilov, geological survey and exploration (including underground) of the Armanskoye, Butugychagskoye, Khenikandzhinsky, Kandychanskoye, Urchanskoye and Porozhisty deposits, exploration work at the Inskoye and Maralinsky deposits, gold mining at the Lesnoy and Zolotoy mines, work at the mine and concentrating factory "Urchan", mining operations at the mines "Duskanya", "Pioneer", them. Budyonny, "Windy", "Cheerful", them. Timoshenko, Khenikandzha mine, logging.
Number:
1951 - 17990;
1952 - 15517;
1953 - 8863.
Yuzlag
Organized 09/20/49, closed between 01/01/54 and 03/17/55. Reorganized: between 05/22/51 and 05/20/52 - from LO to ITL3. Administrative center - pos. Lower Seimchan.
Production: work at the mine. 3rd Five-Year Plan, tin mining at the Verkhne-Seimchansky mine, expansion of the enrichment facility at the Dneprovsky mine, gold mining at the Oroek mine, exploration at the deposits named after. Lazo, them. Chapaeva, them. 3rd Pyatiletki, "Suksukan", "Dneprovskoe", including underground mining, construction of the Dnieper CES, power line Dneprovskiy-Kheta, motorways from the 286th km of the Kolyma highway to the Dneprovskiy combine, tin mining at the Suksukan mine, logging , hay harvesting, maintenance of the tractor fleet.
Number:
1951 - 5238;
1953 - 2247.
Omsukchanlag
Organized no later than 02/01/51, closed 06/13/56. Reorganized between 05/22/51 and 05/20/52 - from LO to ITL. The administrative center is the village of Omsukchan.
Production: work at the Verkhniy Seimchan, Khataren, Galimiy mines, construction of the Gerba-Omsukchan, Motley Dresva-Omsukchan, Omsukchan-Ostantsovyi power lines, concentrating factories No. 7, 14, 14-bis, tin mining and concentrating ki at the mine "Ostantsovy", power lines Galimy-Ostantsovy, work in a coal mine.
Number:
1951 - 8181;
1953 - 4571.
Prepared by Anatoly Smirnov.
According to the materials of the Munich Institute for the Study of the History and Culture of the USSR,
orders and orders of the OGPU, the NKVD, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the research of S. Sigachev,
materials of the State. archive of the Russian Federation, SIC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, ITs of the Internal Affairs Directorate of the Magadan Region.