Soviet Labor Camp Photographs

After reading Scipio’s article that was posted this morning, I wanted to throw up a link to show the remains of an abandoned Soviet labor camp. We don’t really have anything comparable here in the west, not that the power elite aren’t drooling to put many of us in similar camps.

This link gives a small glimpse of the crushing hopelessness and backbreaking labor that anyone who questioned the party line would have been sentenced to.

Abandoned Soviet labor camp from Stalin’s era

There are a lot of pictures out there showing the remains of these camps, along with abandoned Soviet towns, Pioneer camps, etc. if you’re interested in seeing them. Elena Filitova has a site with some good pictures, mostly of Pripyat and Chernobyl. EnglishRussia has tons of interesting pictures as well, just be prepared for a LOT of ads.

By wwesPublished On: March 17, 2022Categories: History, WWES8 Comments

About the Author: wwes

WWES is a high school vocational teacher in North Carolina who teaches students how to grow plants and livestock, along with welding and metal fabrication. He is always looking to grow his knowledge base, and enjoys increasing his self sufficiency through growing and preserving food, as well as raising livestock.

8 Comments

American Yeoman March 17, 2022 at 10:36

There was an account by one of the camp prisoners several years ago that I read that literally made me want to puke- one of the worst things I have ever read or seen in print. The absolute depravity of the camp staff is nearly unfathomable. I won’t even repeat it here. The guy published his article along with some artwork- stuff he had drawn with ashes on scraps of paper etc…haunting and powerful stuff.
- wwes March 17, 2022 at 10:46
  
  Pictures like at the link I posted can’t even begin to do justice to what those folks went through. Those camps and prisons had horrors every bit as awful as what happened in the Nazi concentration camps.
  It really highlights how bad things can get when the average person won’t stand up to evil. If they Russian people had stood up against this kind of treatment en masse it couldn’t have continued.
  - American Yeoman March 17, 2022 at 10:59
    
    That’s certainly Solzhenitsyn’s most often quoted lines from the Gulag Archipelago- about how they burned in the camps…
American Yeoman March 17, 2022 at 11:55

I find it interesting that in what is now according to some, the Disneyland of the modern world, the Russian government has shut down the Gulag Museum and all of the records have simply disappeared. Convenient that….

https://www.france24.com/en/20180720-russian-gulag-museum-forced-shut-authorities
- NC Scout March 17, 2022 at 21:18
  
  I find it interesting the US government has done the same to Confedate records.
plankmember March 17, 2022 at 12:28

great to never forget history…after we acknowledge the largest prison system in the world Currrently….The federal bureau of prisons here operate over 180 (at minimum,probably over 200 as this is a very old CONFIRMED figuire) prison factory “camps” where there are thousands of political prisoners who are there after being railroaded for speaking out the truth and/or fit PROFILES. and are forced to work in factories making military gear you would not believe just to eat and buy cosmetics like toothpaste. I am not talking about people who committed ANY overt acts. Whatsoever…..to simply think that they must have done something that me or you would not approve of is Idiotic and Juvenile…thousands of Jan 6th type good God fearing patriots have been railroaded for prison factory labor for DECADES NOW….and not a word from hardly anyone on this Dark unacknowledged secret
- American Yeoman March 17, 2022 at 14:42
  
  The politics of crime are an interesting thing. As a Civil Attorney I have rarely had dealings with the criminal side of the law but I have represented a few and I shared an office for over 20 years with one of the finest Criminal Defense attorneys in the Texas Panhandle. A man who represented many, many people in Capital Punishment cases and who had at least two of his trials covered by 48 Hours…..I can say without any doubt that both of the folks I represented- a counterfeiter and a low level drug dealer, did what “the law” said they did, and the punishment they got was within what society has determined appropriate for their crimes. Under those circumstances, my opinion is, they belonged in jail. Sample of two…..
  
  I spent many hours talking with my friend about the innocence of his clients etc….and he flatly stated, “That’s not the point. The point is to put the State to the test, every time, no shortcuts….. They may be 100% right- but they have the duty to prove it and convince a jury”. Hell, many of his clients were caught on video, had substantial DNA evidence against them etc… and the legal wrangling was not about IF they had done something illegal but how much time they needed to do. Funny thing was, most of the clients understood this very well- their interest in finding an attorney wasn’t their guilt or innocence but simply in “getting the best deal they could”.
  
  I’m not gonna say there aren’t people in jail in this country who are innocent or whose sentence is out of proportion to what harm they actually caused. But I will say, the vast majority of folks in prison need to be there at least for awhile. It’s unfortunate because they so often fit a familiar pattern- poor, un educated, substance abuse problems, sexual abuse, from crappy families etc….I don’t buy into the “society made me this way” but you do wonder how many really had much of a chance. While I am sympathetic, I’m also a firm believer in the idea that everyone makes their own choices in life.
Wyogrunt March 17, 2022 at 16:58

A day in the life of Ivan Denisovich a must read, the movie was actually pretty good too.