Chukotka Autonomous okrug, the most northeastern part of Russia, was the major part of Gulags, Stalin's infamous prison camps. Tens of thousands people died in 1930-50s in Chukotka and Magadan, which together were heart of the Gulag system known as Kolyma. Janyl Jusupjan recently travelled to Chaunsky disctrict of Chukotka, the region which still remains out of reach even for majority Russian citizens, due to its strategic importance next to the US border. (for editor: The Russian citizens who are not residents of Chukotka, have to apply for a permission to get to Chukotka).
Gulag of Chukotka, Russia
1. Helicopter view of now abandoned mining site, Chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia
1. Helicopter view of now abandoned mining site in Chaunsky district in the north of Chukotka. During the WWII the Chaunsky district became the major source of tin and uranium for the Soviet war industry.
2. Remains of a transit station, Chukotka, Russia
2. Remains of a transit station some 70 km east of district center Pevek. There is another similar station along the way towards the concentration camps in north. The camps and mines were run by Dalstroy (Дальстро́й), or Far North Construction Trust, an organization set up in 1931 by the Soviet NKVD (the predecessor of the KGB) in order to manage road construction and the mining of precious metals in Chukotka and Magadan, which is collectively known also as Kolyma.
3. The closer view of a building at the transit station, Chaunskydistric,t Chukotka, Russia
4. Road between two Gulag transit stations, Chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia.
4. Road between two transit stations. Prisoners were drawn into the Soviet penal system in large numbers during the initial period of Kolyma's development most notably from the so-called anti-Kulak campaign and the government's internal war to force collectivization on the USSR's peasantry.
5. The ramp for deliveries, Chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia
5. The ramp for deliveries across the road from the first transit station. The stations, as well as the mining sites, have the appearance of being hastily abandoned. Dalstroy created some 80 Gulag camps across the Kolyma region. The total area covered by Dalstroy grew to three million square kilometers by 1951.
5.b A can imprinted on the ground near the transit station, Chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia
5.b A can imprinted on the ground near the transit station. The inmates here were still some kilometers away from the mining complex and perhaps not aware of the full range of destitution awaiting for them. Solzhenitsyn's novel Archipelago Gulag quotes camp commander as establishing the new law in prisons: "We have to squeeze everything out of a inmates in the first three months — after that we don't need him anymore."
6. View of uranium mines, Chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia
6. View of uranium mines under majestic Kekury – collection of column-like stone structures. Tens of thousands or more people may have died en route to the area or in the Kolyma's series of mining, road building, lumbering, and construction camps between 1932 and 1954.
7. A mine under Kekury, chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia
A mine under another Kekury, which looks like a collection of people, or to some, a castle. The locals say that inmated at the Vostochny camp were deeply shorked by likeliness of one of the Kekury columns to Stalin.
8. View of another mining complex, Chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia
8. View of another mining complex east of Pevek. The uranium extraction factory here was closed in early 1950s where radioactive tails were collected. The tails reportedly remain open and radiation levels high. (ru.wikipedia)
9. Gulag room at Museum, Chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia
9. View of a room devoted to Stalin's Gulag at Chaunsky district center Pevek, the most northers town of Russia and in Asia.
10. Gulag room at Museum, Chaunsky district, Chukotka, Russia
10. Some of items collected from Gulag camps at the museum. During and after the Second World War the region saw major influxes of Ukrainians, Polish, German, Japanese, and Korean prisoners. Those judged guilty of collaboration with the enemy often received ten or twenty-five year prison sentences to a gulag.
11. View of a landscape, Chaunski district, Chukotka, Russia
11. View of a landscape between now abandoned mines in the area. The Kolyma camps were converted to mostly free labor after 1954, and in 1956 Nikita Khrushchev ordered a general amnesty that freed many prisoners. Dalstroy today is part of the Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy, which now runs gold mines for Russian and foreign investors. The uranium and tin mines, deemed unprofitable, are now closed and the villagers set up tp service camps are abandoned