Karlag

Karlag (Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp, Russian: Карагандинский исправительно-трудовой лагерь, Карлаг) was one of the largest

USSR

. It operated during 1930—1959.

History

It was established in 1931 during the period of settlement of remote areas of greater USSR and its ethnic republics. Cheap labor was in high demand for these purposes. People were arrested and transported from west of the

Article 58 RSFSR.^[1] Over 1,000,000 inmates in total served in Karlag over its history.^[2]

One of the main reasons for creating Karlag camp was the establishment of a large agricultural base supported by free labor for rapidly growing industry in central Kazakhstan -

Collectivization

of the steppe, forced relocation, and confiscation pushed them to the city of Karaganda and its neighboring regions. Karaganda was just starting to build coal mines, so many of these resettled people were used as cheap labor. Confiscated sheep, camels, cattle, and horses were transported to the newly formed "Eastern Meats" (Vostok Myaso) organization, which processed it in order to feed the labor force. The empty lands of resettled people were soon filled with thousands of rows of inmates. Echelons of new prisoners came one after another from the central parts of the

Russian SFSR

. They quickly spread across the steppe building railroads, housing for livestock, housing for camp employees, barracks, and isolation units.

Karlag wardens answered only to Gulag NKVD in Moscow. No Soviet, state or local government organizations had any influence on the operations of the wardens and supervisors of the camp. It resembled a colony, with a heavy management apparatus. Its departments included: administrative-agricultural, planning and control, culture-educational, human resources, trade, supply-chain, transport, finance, political, medical, and more. In Karlag, the inmates' efforts built a meat-processing plant and a leather/fur-processing plant which produced leather products, furs and valenki.

Modern times

In 2001 a Karlag Museum [ru] was established in Dolinka [ru], Karaganda Region.

In 2020 in Zhanalyk village (Rus. Жаналык) local farmers excavated remains of at least 55 victims of NKVD executions.^[3]

Notable inmates

Arkadiy Belinkov (1921–1970), writer
Alexander Grigoriev (1891–1961), painter
Nikolay Urvantsev (1893–1985), geologist and explorer
Alexander Chizhevsky (1897–1964), scientist
Margarete Buber-Neuman (1901–1989), German writer
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), author and critic of the Gulag system
Mikuláš Gacek [sk] (1895–1970), Slovak writer^{[citation needed]}
Vasile Pop (1921-2009), engineer
komandirovka in Burma [ru] .^[4]

References

^ "Karlag" Archived 2019-09-25 at the Wayback Machine, a website to preserve information about Karlag and its inmates
^ "Names", a page of the Karlag website
^ tengrinews.kz (2020-05-26). ""56 расстрелянных". Пенсионер поведал о страшной находке под Алматы". Главные новости Казахстана - Tengrinews.kz (in Russian). Retrieved 2020-05-26.
^ Zwycięstwo literatury nad totalitaryzmem. W 60. rocznicę śmierci Herminii Naglerowej

[1] "Karlag" Archived 2019-09-25 at the Wayback Machine, a website to preserve information about Karlag and its inmates

[2] "Names", a page of the Karlag website

[3] tengrinews.kz (2020-05-26). ""56 расстрелянных". Пенсионер поведал о страшной находке под Алматы". Главные новости Казахстана - Tengrinews.kz (in Russian). Retrieved 2020-05-26.

[4] Zwycięstwo literatury nad totalitaryzmem. W 60. rocznicę śmierci Herminii Naglerowej

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

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