Gulag karlag. History of the camp

Karaganda forced labor camp of the OGPU (1931 - 1959)

In May of this year, a resolution was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the organization of the Kazakh forced labor camp (KazITLAG). However, a year later, on December 19 of the year, another decision was made: “The first department of KazITLAG - the state farm “Giant” - will be reorganized on this date into the Karaganda separate forced labor camp of the OGPU, abbreviated as “Karlag OGPU”, with direct subordination to the “GULAG” and the location Administration of the camp in the village of Dolinskoye."

One of the first policy documents states: “The Karaganda state farm giant OGPU receives an honorable and responsible task - to develop the grandiose region of Central Kazakhstan.” On the territory of the future camp at that time there were 4 thousand Kazakh yurts and 1200 households of Russians, Germans and Ukrainians. The forced eviction of people from inhabited areas began, in which NKVD troops took part. Germans, Russians and Ukrainians were resettled mainly to the Telmansky, Osakarovsky and Nura districts of the Karaganda region. The eviction coincided with dispossession and confiscation of livestock. The confiscated cattle were transferred to the Gigant state farm. And along the sides of the roads lay dead people who had perished from hunger, and no one was in a hurry to bury them.

After the eviction, at the end of 1931, the empty lands were occupied by numerous columns of prisoners arriving from all over the Soviet Union. The first inhabitants of Karlag, according to the recollections of old-timers, were monks and priests. The number of prisoners grew from year to year, and along with it the “giant state farm” grew and developed.

The administrative center of Karlag was in the village of Dolinka, located 33 km from Karaganda. In the center of Dolinka the first department was located - a prison within a prison, where prisoners were given additional sentences, tortured, and executed. A visiting panel of the Karaganda Regional Court consisting of three persons, called the “troika,” worked in Karlag. The sentences were carried out locally. Those executed were registered as “Dead,” and their personal files were destroyed.

“Karlag” is allocated 120,000 hectares of arable land, 41,000 hectares of hayfields. The length of the territory of Karlag from north to south is 300 km and from east to west - 200 km. In addition, outside this territory there were two branches: Akmola, located 350 km from the center of the camp, and Balkhash branch, located 650 km from the center of the camp. One of the main goals of the Karlag organization was the creation of a large food base for the rapidly developing coal and metallurgical industry of Central Kazakhstan: the Karaganda coal basin, Zhezkazgan and Balkhash copper smelters. In addition, labor was needed to create and develop these industries.

The Karlag administration was subordinate only to the OGPU (NKVD) Gulag in Moscow. Republican and regional party and Soviet bodies had virtually no influence on the activities of the camp. It was a colonial-type formation with its own metropolis in Moscow. Essentially, it was a state within a state. It had real power, weapons, vehicles, and maintained a post office and telegraph. Its numerous branches - “points” - were linked into a single economic mechanism, with its own state plan.

The structure of Karlag was quite cumbersome and had numerous departments: administrative and economic (AHO), accounting and distribution (URO), control and planning (KGTO), cultural and educational (KVO), personnel department for civilians, supply, trade, III-operchekist , financial, transport, political department. The last department of Karlag sent 17 types of reports monthly to the Gulag administration, and the entire camp administration did the same. High profitability (cheap labor, minimal cost of assets, low depreciation costs) contributed to the expansion of production.

The main part of the Karlag economy was located on the territory of the Karaganda and Akmola regions. If in 1931 the territory of Karlag was 53,000 hectares, then in 1941 it was 1,780,650 hectares. If in 1931 Karlag had 14 branches, 64 sites, then in 1941 - 22 branches, 159 sites, and in 1953 - 26 branches, 192 camp points. Each department, in turn, is divided into a number of economic units called sections, points, farms. The camp had 106 livestock farms, 7 vegetable plots and 10 arable plots.

On July 27, Karlag was closed (reorganized into the UMP of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Karaganda region). Nowadays, the Museum of Memory of Victims of Political Repression has been organized in the village of Dolinka.

Prisoners of Karlag

The number of prisoners sometimes reached, according to various sources, 65-75 thousand people. Over the entire period of Karlag’s existence, more than 1 million prisoners visited it.

In the list below we are trying to collect the names of Karlag prisoners who served their sentences for church matters. This list does not pretend to be complete; it will be updated gradually as material becomes available. Dates in brackets are arrival at camp (unless otherwise indicated) and departure (or death). The list is ordered by latest date.

sschmch. Alexy Ilyinsky, priest. (18 June 1931 - 4 August 1931), died in Karlag
sschmch. Mikhail Markov, priest. (April 22, 1933 - April 29, 1934), sentence replaced by exile to Kazakhstan
Spanish Nikolai Rozov, prot. (1931 - June 23, 1933), released early
sschmch. Leonid Biryukovich, prot. (1935 - spring 1937), released early due to extreme deterioration of health
sschmch. Pavel Gaidai, priest. (January 22, 1936 - September 5, 1937), executed
sschmch. Victor Ellansky, prot. (April 15, 1936 - September 8, 1937), executed
martyr Dimitry Morozov (May 16, 1937 - September 8, 1937), executed
martyr Petr Bordan (1936 - September 8, 1937), executed
prmts. Ksenia (Cherlina-Brailovskaya), mon. (November 20, 1933 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
sschmch. Damascene (Cedric), bishop. b. Glukhovskoy (October 27, 1936 - September 15, 1937), executed
sschmch. Vasily Zelensky, priest. (January 2, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
sschmch. Victor Basov, priest. (November 12, 1935 - September 15, 1937), executed
sschmch. Vladimir Morinsky, priest. (June 8, 1935 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Burma branch of Karlag
sschmch. Theodotus Shatokhin, priest. (February 14, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
sschmch. Evfimy Goryachev, prot. (September 6, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Burma branch of Karlag
sschmch. John Melnichenko, priest. (December 14, 1935 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Burma branch of Karlag
sschmch. Stefan Yaroshevich, priest. (February 27, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
sschmch. John Smolichev, priest. (December 7, 1936 - September 15, 1937), shot in the Burma branch of Karlag
sschmch. Pyotr Novoselsky (December 16, 1935 - September 15, 1937), executed in the Koktun-Kul branch of Karlag
sschmch. Evgeniy (Zernov), Metropolitan. Gorkovsky (1935 - September 20, 1937), executed
prmch. Evgeny (Vyzhva), abbot. (1936 - September 20, 1937), executed
prmch. Pachomius (Ionov), priest. (September 25, 1935 - September 20, 1937), executed
sschmch. Zechariah (Lobov), archbishop. Voronezhsky (February 8, 1936 - September 21, 1937), executed
sschmch. Joseph Arkharov, priest. (March 8, 1936 – September 21, 1937), executed
sschmch. Stefan Kostogryz, priest. (February 10, 1936 - September 26, 1937), executed
sschmch. Alexander Aksenov, priest. (March 5, 1937 - September 26, 1937), executed
prmch. Nikolai (Ashchepiev), abbot. (September 16, 1935 – September 1937), executed by firing squad
sschmch. Stefan Kreidich, priest. (1936 - September 1937), executed by firing squad
sschmch. Theoktist Smelnitsky, prot. (September 10, 1936 - October 3, 1937), executed
prmch. Mauritius (Poletaev), archim. (February 9, 1936 - October 4, 1937), executed
martyr Vasily Kondratyev (January 8, 1936 – October 4, 1937), executed
martyr Vladimir Pravdolyubov (December 2, 1935 – October 4, 1937), executed
sschmch. Alexander Orlov, priest. (February 8, 1936 - November 2, 1937), executed
sschmch. Zosima Pepenin, priest. (October 11, 1935 - November 2, 1937), executed
sschmch. Leonid Nikolsky (October 17, 1935 – November 2, 1937), executed
sschmch. Ioann Ganchev, prot. (1936 - November 2, 1937), executed
sschmch. John Rechkin, priest. (February 25, 1936 - November 2, 1937), executed
sschmch. Ioann Rodionov, prot. (1933 - November 2, 1937), executed
sschmch. Nikolai Figurov, priest. (1935 - November 2, 1937), executed
sschmch. Mikhail Isaev, deacon (February 7 – November 2, 1937), executed by firing squad
martyr Pavel Bocharov (January 23, 1936 – November 2, 1937), executed
sschmch. Peter Kravets, protod. (September 13 - November 2, 1937), shot
martyr Georgy Yurenev (August 27, 1936 – November 20, 1937), executed
sschmch. Sergius (Zverev), archbishop. Yeletsky (1936 - November 20, 1937), executed
sschmch. Nikolai Romanovsky, prot. (1931 - November 20, 1937), executed
sschmch. Vasily Krasnov, priest. (December 16, 1935 – November 20, 1937), executed by firing squad
sschmch. Seraphim (Ostroumov), archbishop. Smolensky (April - November 1937), arrested in the camp, sent to Smolensk, where he was shot
sschmch. John Glazkov, priest. (June 3, 1934 - December 10, 1937), executed
martyr Leonid Salkov (September 1935 - March 7, 1938), executed
martyr Pyotr Antonov (1935 - March 7, 1938), executed
sschmch. John of Preobrazhensky, protodeacon (September 19, 1937 – June 11, 1938), died in the camp
Spanish Sevastian (Fomin) (1933 - April 29, 1939), released
sschmch. Pavel Dobromyslov, Rev. (July 16, 1938 - February 9, 1940), died in the 8th Chur-Nura department
sschmch. John Anserov, priest. (May 27, 1938 - May 6, 1940), died in Karlag, on a camp assignment Burma
prmts. Marfa (Testova), nun (May 3, 1938 - April 26, 1941), died in the camp hospital at the Spassky department of Karlag
sschmch. John Spassky (1937 - May 10, 1941), died in the camp hospital at the Spassky department of Karlag
sschmch. Nikolai Benevolensky, prot. (July 12, 1940 - May 16, 1941), died in the Spassky branch of Karlag
sschmch. Ismail Bazilevsky, priest. (March 1941 - November 17, 1941), re-arrested in the camp and executed
Peter Tveritin, priest. (July 25, 1936 - December 3, 1941), died in Karlag
sschmch. Nikolai Krylov, prot. (December 2, 1936 - December 12, 1941), died in Karlag
martyr Dimitry Vlasenkov (May 11, 1941 - May 5, 1942), died in the camp hospital of the Espinsky branch of Karlag
mts. Natalia Sundukova (March 9, 1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Agrippina Kiseleva
mts. Anna Borovskaya (January 11, 1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Anna Popova (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Varvara Derevyagina (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Evdokia Guseva (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Evdokia Nazina (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Evfrosiniya Denisova (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Matrona Navolokina (1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Natalia Vasilyeva (October 30, 1940 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Natalia Siluyanova (March 13, 1941 - January 11, 1942), executed
mts. Feoktista Chentsova (November 19, 1937 - February 16, 1942), died in one of the Karlag departments
mts.

Karlag (1930-1959) - one of the largest forced labor camps of the Gulag, located in the Karaganda region of Kazakhstan. The Karaganda camp occupies a special place in the history of repression.

Karlag was organized on December 19, 1931, the center of the camp was located in the village of Dolinka, 45 km from Karaganda. Karlag was allocated 120 thousand hectares of arable land and 41 thousand hectares of hayfields.

By 1940, the developed area of the camp was 1,780,650 hectares, and the length of the territory from north to south was about 300 km, from east to west about 200 km.

One of the main goals of the Karlag organization was the creation of a large food and production base for the developing coal and metallurgical industry of Central Kazakhstan: the Karaganda coal basin, the Dzhezkazgan and Balkhash copper smelters.

Since 1931, mass arrests of peasants began throughout the Volga region, Penza, Tambov, Kursk, Voronezh, and Oryol regions.

The settlement of Kazakhstan and the creation of industrial centers required the creation of a railway connection with the central regions of Russia.

The first stage of Karlag was sent to build a railway from Akmolinsk to Karaganda.

In May 1931, the railway was completed and put into operation.

After this, families of road builders began to be resettled in the Karaganda region and Osakarovsky district. By the autumn of 1931, 52 thousand families were brought to central Kazakhstan. Families were transported in tightly packed veal wagons. The carriages were overcrowded. Pregnant women, nursing mothers, children, and old people were traveling in the same carriages. Many already began to die in the carriages. The dead were transported along with the living to their destination.

Of those who remained, they chose the stronger and healthier ones for the construction of the Karaganda-Balkhash road. The conditions under which people worked were inhuman. Those who could not cope with the norm had their rations cut.

Exhausted people fell dead. Bodies of the dead

They placed it directly into the railway embankment and covered it with soil.

Karlag had real power, weapons, vehicles, maintained a post office, and a telegraph. It consisted of 26 “points” located within a radius of 2 to 400 km.

A visiting panel of the Karaganda Regional Court worked in Karlag. The sentences were carried out locally. The condemned were forced to kneel in front of a hole dug by other prisoners and shot in the back of the head.

Those executed were registered as “Dead,” and their personal files were destroyed.

Karlag's economy flourished. World-famous scientists, military leaders, cultural figures, politicians, people of clergy, and monastics were kept in Karlag.

In 1931, the “Giant” state farm with an area of 17 thousand hectares was organized in the Kazakh steppe. Under this name an institution appeared that, from 1931 to 1959, forever distorted the fates of 6 million political prisoners, internees and prisoners of war. The name of this bloody monster is Karlag NKVD...

Ground floor corridor. Torture chambers, punishment cells and an execution wall were located here, from the blog, 2015

Kazakhs, Germans, Russians, Romanians, Hungarians, Poles, Belarusians, Jews, Chechens, Ingush, French, Georgians, Italians, Kyrgyz, Ukrainians, Japanese, Finns, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians - the hellish millstones of the NKVD ground everyone, without distinguishing nationalities

Punishment cell. The prisoner was allowed to sleep on the ice floor 4 hours a day. The rest of the time he was required to stand. People were severely beaten for trying to lean against the wall, from the blog, 2015

The Karlag system included many camps and special purpose zones (osoblags). The largest of them are Spaslag (prisoners of war), Algeria (Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the Motherland) Steplag (Ukrainians, Balts, Vlasovites). The administrative center of Karlag became the village of Dolinka, 50 km from Karaganda. The total territory of Karlag is comparable in area to the territory of France...

Particularly intractable people were put in a hole and not given water or food for several days, from the blog, 2015

The main activity of the prisoners was the extraction of stone for the construction of roads. All work was done manually. People died from cold, hunger and physical exhaustion. The weakest were finished off by the guards... At the time of the creation of the camps, authorized special units of the NKVD forcibly evicted the entire local population from this territory. Often with forced confiscation of livestock. For the Kazakhs this meant starvation...

Torture chamber. The smell of blood is still here. People were beaten, tortured with electricity, their fingers were broken with hammers, from the blog, 2015

No count was kept of those who died from disease, and personal files were destroyed after death. So the person disappeared forever. The intelligentsia of the Soviet Union were exiled to Karlag, among whom were such names as the greatest biologist Chizhevsky, Lev Gumilyov, Father Sevastyan...

Ivan Ivanovich Karpinsky, a participant in the Kengir uprising, was a prisoner of Steplag.

I myself am from Ukraine. I was arrested for reading bourgeois literature. It was a book on the history of Ukraine. For this they gave me 25 years in the camps. And I myself was only 19... So I ended up in the village of Kengir, whose prisoners were building Zhezkazgan. Mostly there were young people from Ukraine, Balts and Vlasovites.

The security was fierce. Prisoners were killed for no reason. On Easter, the guards fired at a convoy of prisoners. The next day the entire camp did not show up for work. A lesson was sent to our camp. Criminals. So that they can kill us. But we didn’t let them do this. Then 15 people died in the massacre. This was the limit...

On May 16, 1954, we blocked the camp and demanded a change in the camp regime. We held the line for 42 days. And on June 26, several landmines were dropped on us from an airplane. And then tanks entered the camp. They shot at the barracks and crushed people. The whole earth was covered in blood. Neither children nor women were spared.

To the question: “How did you survive?”, Ivan Ivanovich began to cry...

We were taken to be killed in ore wagons. They wanted to throw it into a mine. For fifteen minutes we hung over the abyss. If you pressed a button, you would go 40 meters down. But at the last moment they changed their decision. And that's how I survived...

Polina Petrovna Ostapchuk, former prisoner of Karlag.

I'm from Ukraine. After the war, we were very hungry, and I collected money for a government loan after the war. 50 rubles each. There was a lot of money back then. I stood up to the authorities on behalf of a widow with four children, so that they would not take money from her. For this they gave me 10 years. They assigned me work for American intelligence. They didn’t let me sleep for a week, and I signed everything.

In 1948 I was sent to Spassk. I stayed there for 4 years. She survived miraculously. Then there was Aktas. Construction in summer, factory in winter. 4 years on a jackhammer. And I got out already in 1956, after serving 8 years.

In my youth, I was a prominent girl, and the camp commandant began to court me. He followed me for four months, but I did not respond to his advances, then he threatened to arrange a “tram” for me - this is when 11 men are raped, and the 12th one comes with syphilis. One girl was infected this way and soon died. I had to agree to save my life. So in the zone I lost my virginity and gave birth to my first son... A lot of people died. From our department in Spassk, five coffins were taken out per day. The coffins were light - the people were so exhausted...

From the blog, 2015

Zoya Mikhailovna Slyudova is a child of Karlag.

Mom was expelled from Belarus in 1939, she was 18 years old. I was born in 1940 and grew up in Dolinka. Our teachers were “wives of traitors to the Motherland.” And at the age of 8 we were transferred to the Kompaneisky orphanage. The teachers took our bread. There was no heating in winter. We carried the children out dead ourselves. Many died. Children were buried in wooden barrels. There were no coffins allocated for them. We were the children of enemies of the people, they didn’t feel sorry for us...

____________________________

Travel photographer:

I continue the camp theme that I started - the Akmola camp for the wives of traitors to the motherland. Only from Astana we will now move to Karaganda - fortunately, this is not far at all by the standards of Kazakhstan.

In 1930, in the middle of the Great Steppe, the state farm “Giant” arose, a year later it turned into the Karaganda forced labor camp - one of the largest, along with Vorkuta and Kolyma, “islands” of the Gulag, stretching for hundreds of kilometers and containing up to 65 thousand prisoners at a time (as well as another 12 to 40 thousand in “special estates”). Even then it was clear that the interior regions of Kazakhstan, in terms of their undeveloped nature and resource potential, were worthy of the Far North; there were already plans for grandiose development of the local mines, and Karlag was entrusted with the task of preparing the Steppe for development. In 1931, the entire civilian population (mostly settlers from the early 20th century) was evicted from the territory of Karlag, and prisoners were taken in their place - initially peasants from the Russian Black Earth Region, then everyone else. Karlag operated until 1959, during which time its prisoners built Karaganda, Ekibastuz, Dzhezkazgan, Balkhash and dozens of other cities and towns, connected them with railways and roads, established land reclamation, establishing fields and pastures in the steppe. Among them were Lev Gumilev, Chizhevsky, Solzhenitsyn.

The center of Karlag was not Karaganda, but the village of Dolinka (5.7 thousand inhabitants) 45 kilometers west of the latter. Or even not the center - the capital: it was not the prisoners who lived here, but the authorities. And what’s even more surprising is that the village has hardly changed since then...

, year 2012

Pay attention to the monument - the symbol is already familiar from the ALGERIA memorial. Until recently, the Department was in the same neglected state as the village itself; they apparently began to cultivate it for the 80th anniversary of Karlag, and the museum was opened on May 31, 2010 - on the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repression. That everything here is “brand new” can be seen with the naked eye:

, year 2012

The Karlag Museum generally has a lot in common with the ALZHIR Museum - only here everything is much worse. The museum itself is made even stronger - with long corridors, supports in the shape of gallows, frightening dim lighting, barely audible voices telling in Russian about the atrocities that were happening here - it acts very strongly and somehow implicitly: anxiety and depression grow gradually and imperceptibly, and You feel them fully only when you come out into the light of day again, and even thinking about the reliability of the proposed facts seems like blasphemy. You can evaluate this, for example, here (there are also memories of prisoners), but I didn’t really manage to photograph anything: like in most museums in Kazakhstan, photography is prohibited here, but unlike ALZHIR, you can’t even walk around the Karlagov Museum Unaccompanied. As a result, I walked in a group of four people with two guides, who practically did not take their eyes off me, as if I was not trying to photograph something, but to steal it. In fact, there are a lot of interesting things here - documents, things, interiors (including the chief’s office with a painting on the theme of Lenin, painted by one of the prisoners)... I did film something:

, year 2012

The laboratory here is not accidental - Karlag had two dozen “sharashkas”, in which, again, scientists worked with forced labor, but in their specialty - in the development of such a complex area, the strength of the working hands alone was not enough. This may be due to the concentration of intelligentsia in Karlag - for example, the biophysicist Chizhevsky or the geneticist Efraimson. And Lev Gumilyov, thrown into the depths of the Great Steppe, could not help but draw new ideas for his theories here (considering that he was no stranger to the camps - before that he had survived several years in Norilsk).

For some reason, I managed to photograph most of all in the basement of the Directorate, where the interiors of various cells were recreated - located, of course, not here, but in the barracks of other camps. More precisely, I filmed only the male and female cameras:

, year 2012

And a torture chamber... Much of what was presented here seemed quite controversial to me. For example, in the punishment cell here there is a pit with bars on top, into which the guilty were supposedly put. In the torture chamber there are some very medieval tools, like hooks for hanging a person from the ceiling. I couldn’t help but wonder if similar technologies were used in the Gulag? At least in such quantities as to be a system?..

But overall, it was very nice to get out of these halls and into the air. I walked along the gloomy and dusty streets of Dolinka wherever my eyes led me. Many fences have barbed wire. Previously, I had only seen this in the Komi Republic, and I immediately remembered that Karaganda and Vorkuta are essentially sisters. In the barracks built by prisoners for their guards, descendants of prisoners now live... The name makes you feel uneasy. They say that initially children were buried here - there was also an orphanage in Dolinka, because some prisoners came here pregnant, others were subjected to violence, and many children died from disease and hunger.

, year 2012

Their graves are represented by bent crosses just above the weeds... Only when leaving here on the PAZik did I suddenly notice that in Dolinka I didn’t seem to meet a single Kazakh. Russians, Ukrainians, Germans, Lithuanians live here, but they are completely different from those who live in Russia or Ukraine. There are three zones operating here to this day - however, they contain quite ordinary criminals. Like Perm-36 with its crazy people walking around the village, Dolinka left a feeling of a “cursed place”.

- (Karaganda forced labor camp) one of the largest forced labor camps in 1930-1959, subordinate to the Gulag of the NKVD of the USSR. Over the years of its existence, Karlag received about a million people. By the beginning of the 1950s Karlag... ... Wikipedia

Karlag- Karaganda camp, Karaganda... Dictionary of abbreviations and abbreviations

Karlag (Karaganda forced labor camp) one of the largest forced labor camps in 1930-1959, subordinate to the Gulag of the NKVD of the USSR. Over the years of its existence, Karlag received about a million people. By the beginning of the 1950s Karlag... ... Wikipedia

A; GULAG, a; m. State Administration of Corrective Labor Camps, Settlements and Places of Detention. Prisoners of the Gulag. ● Existed in 1934 1956. under the NKVD. / About the socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Socialist city Eastern European... encyclopedic Dictionary

- (ITL), in the USSR in 1929 56 one of the places for serving a sentence of imprisonment. The ITL system, under a slightly different name, existed in 1918-19 and included special forced labor camps, where persons who posed a danger to... ... were sent. encyclopedic Dictionary

This term has other meanings, see Karaganda (meanings). City of Karaganda Karaganda Coat of Arms ... Wikipedia

The request for "ALZHIR" is redirected here; see also other meanings. "ALZHIR" The climate of the Kazakh steppe is very harsh. Sizzling 40 degree heat and clouds of insects... Wikipedia

- (North-Eastern forced labor camp) a unit operating within the structure of the OGPU NKVD of the USSR. Contents 1 History 2 Production 3 Management ... Wikipedia

This term has other meanings, see Gulag (rock band). The Main Directorate of Camps and Places of Detention (GULag) is a division of the NKVD of the USSR, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR, the Ministry of Justice of the USSR, which carried out the management of places of mass... ... Wikipedia

City of Karaganda Karaganda Coat of Arms ... Wikipedia

Books

, Alevtina Okuneva, Archimandrite Isaac, in the world Ivan Vasilyevich Vinogradov, lived a long, eventful life. Since childhood, he dreamed of becoming a clergyman, but during the First World War, while still a young man... Category: Religion Publisher: Pilgrim,
The spring of my monasticism. Biography and spiritual heritage of Archimandrite Isaac (Vinogradov), Okunev A.V. , Archimandrite Isaac, in the world Ivan Vasilyevich Vinogradov (1895-l981), lived a long, eventful life. Since childhood, he dreamed of becoming a clergyman, but during the First World War, while still... Category: Orthodox literature Series: Publisher: Pilgrim,

Aisulu Toyshibekova, Vlast

During its 28-year existence, one of the largest camps in the Gulag system, the Karaganda forced labor camp, became the home and grave for hundreds of thousands of people who fell into the millstones of the repressive machine of the Soviet Union. 80 years after the start of the great terror, Vlast recalls how it all began.

Collectivization and the subsequent industrialization of the country required enormous human resources, with minimal costs. Then it was decided that prisoners would rebuild industrial and food centers. On July 11, 1929, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution “On the use of labor of criminal prisoners”; according to the resolution, all those convicted for a term of three years or more were transferred to the United State Political Administration, which was engaged in the fight against counter-revolution and espionage. In the spring of 1930, the Council of People's Commissars approved the “Regulations on forced labor camps.” This document regulated the work of all forced labor camps. For everyone, this activity was presented as the protection of communist society from socially dangerous elements, the use of human resources of unreliable citizens for the benefit of the Soviet Union. It was through exhausting daily labor that they had to atone for dissent.

“Corrective labor camps have the task of protecting society from especially socially dangerous offenders by isolating them, combined with socially useful labor, and adapting these offenders to the conditions of a labor dormitory.”

"Regulations on forced labor camps"

Photo by Galina Zhuvakina

Camp prisoners were classified into three categories. The first category, according to the regulations, included prisoners from among workers, peasants and employees who had voting rights before the sentencing and were sentenced for the first time to terms of no more than 5 years not for counter-revolutionary crimes. The second category included the same representatives of the working class, but sentenced to terms longer than 5 years. The third group includes all unemployed citizens convicted of counter-revolutionary crimes.

Counter-revolutionary activities were taken very seriously in the Soviet Union. The most famous article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic is the 58th, it had 14 points and 4 subpoints, establishing punishment for counter-revolutionary activities in its most varied manifestations - from a coup d'etat to failure to report a family member and sabotage. Similar articles existed in the Criminal Codes of other union republics.

Karlag administration building in the village of Dolinka. Photo from the site shahtinsklib.kz and from the archives of the Museum of Memory of Victims of Political Repression

Very soon, dozens of camps began to be created throughout the country. The GULAG had 64 large branches, 500 correctional labor colonies, 770 industrial colonies, and 414 state farms under its control. In December 1931, on the basis of the state farm, the NKVD forces created the Karaganda forced labor camp or, as it was also called, Karlag. It occupied the area of three districts of the Karaganda region: Telmansky, Zhan-Arkinsky and Nurinsky, the main territory of the camp extended from north to south for 300 km, from east to west - 200 km. On this territory there were numerous auls and settlements created and inhabited by the Germans during the Stolypin reforms. One of these was the village of Dolinskoye or Dolinka, 45 kilometers from Karaganda.

“Dolinka itself was formed at the beginning of the 20th century. In this territory. Even during the Stolypin reforms, the Germans came here to develop the lands. Altgradenreit - this is what the village of Dolinka was called in German - Sacred Valley of Grace. In 1909, Dolinka received the status of a settlement unit, and at the same time the Dolinskaya volost was formed. In 1931, when Karlag was formed, Dolinka became its “capital”. The entire population living on the territory of Karlag was forcibly evicted outside the camp. The period when the camp was created coincided with collectivization, and, as a rule, people were evicted with complete confiscation of property,” said Ivan Kondrashev, a researcher at the Museum of Memory of Victims of Political Repression in the village of Dolinka. He conducts tours for museum visitors.

Photo by Galina Zhuvakina

One of the goals of creating Karlag was to create a large food base for industrial centers: Karaganda, Balkhash and Karsakpay. In addition, camp prisoners became free labor for the coal and metallurgical industries.

Soviet citizens, recognized as unreliable, were sent in cattle cars from all over the Soviet Union in stages to Kazakhstan. Here grueling hard labor awaited them. According to data for 1951, 58.5% of all activities were related to agriculture (livestock farming accounted for 48.2%, crop production - 51.8%); for industry – 41.5%.

Karlag was not just a camp, it was a kind of state within a state with its own military formations, telegraphs, railway stations, and printing houses. Karlag reported directly to the Main Directorate of Forced Labor Camps in Moscow. As of 1931, the Karaganda camp had 14 departments and 64 sections; 10 years later, in 1941 - 220 branches, 159 sites; in 1953 - 26 departments, 192 camp points, on its territory there were 106 livestock farms, 7 vegetable gardens and 10 arable plots. In 1940, the Karlag farm had 17,710 heads of cattle, 193,158 heads of sheep, 5,814 heads of horses, 567 pigs, 3,729 working oxen. The work for the camp prisoners never ended: in the warm season they were engaged in agriculture, in the cold season they worked in factories and factories.

Goodbye kids. I was tried by the troika, I am an enemy of the people

A short note from carpenter Philip Seleznev to children. He was arrested and convicted in 1937 by an extrajudicial criminal prosecution body, the so-called “troika”, consisting of the head of the regional department of the NKVD, the secretary of the regional committee and the regional prosecutor. The history of his family, originally from the Kursk region, is described in the book by Ekaterina Kuznetsova “Karlag: on both sides of the “thorn””.

Photo courtesy of the Museum of Memory of Victims of Political Repression

First of all, religious ministers, intellectuals, nobility, officers, and peasants were subjected to repression. In 1937, the Great Terror began; this period included mass purges both in the highest echelons of Soviet power and among scientists, intellectuals, ordinary workers and peasants. And before the war, entire peoples began to be exiled in the steppes of Kazakhstan, known for their harsh climate - overcrowded freight cars with “special settlers” went from all over the Soviet Union to Sary-Arka for weeks.

Karabas railway station, 2004. Photo of the Central State Archive of Film, Photo Documents and Sound Recordings

At different times, many famous scientists were prisoners of Karlag, among them the orientalist Lev Gumilyov. In March 1951, he was exiled to the Karlagov transfer to the Karabas station for six months.

According to Ivan Kondrashev, over the 28 years of its existence, more than a million people passed through Karlag. With the help of these people, the industry of Central Kazakhstan was built, primarily the Karaganda coal basin, Dzhezkazgan and Balkhash copper smelters. The largest number of repressed people occurred during the war and post-war years, when deported peoples, prisoners of war and Soviet soldiers and officers who were in Nazi captivity were sent to the camp: from 1942 to 1949, the number of prisoners increased from 42 thousand to 65-75 thousand people. From 1931 to 1959, 1,507 children were born in Karlag, but living conditions in the camp contributed to high mortality among both adults and children: in September and October 1945, 98 out of 514 children died in Karlag.

Photo courtesy of the Central State Archive of Film, Photo Documents and Sound Recordings

There is no exact number of dead prisoners in Karlag and other labor camps on the territory of Kazakhstan, the number is tens of thousands of people: this is more than one and a half thousand certificates of those executed; even more died from disease and the hands of camp guards.

Yulia Pankratova took part in the preparation of the material