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There were women's units in the concentration camp. For what were women imprisoned? Many young women (from 18 to 35) were sent to camps for "grains" - for 7-8 years. For the sack of rye, stolen in a state farm - 12 years. For money wasting in the store - 10 years. For theft on manufacturing (stole 3 meters of cloth and 5 spools of thread) - 8 years. For being late at work - 5 years. Those, who had bigger theft - for 15 years and more. And here the camp hell!! Ragged and hungry women dragged wooden railroad ties. 5 cubic meters for two women on stocking wood, and, god, give a good convoy guard, and if the guard is wicked, then in addition to the fulfilled norm a woman received a blow with a fist, rifle and evil words. And all the time the horrible expectation - who will getโฆ There were runaways from camps. Basically military men, who had been in captivity, ran away - they were more organized. But where to run? In winter - frost, in summer - mosquitoes and heat. Runaways were caught, they received additional prison term or were shot. Zhighin remembers. "Where to run? Swamps, tundra, forests are around. There were frantic ones who ran away, but they could stay there during several days if only did not die in swamps or eat each other (there were such cases). They came back to camp with guilt. One of witnesses Nikolay told about his fate and about large-scaled rebellion of convicts. "I was a convict in the Far North, in Circumpolar. Building 501. I saw with my own eyes and came through horrors of Stalin's camps of death. We built the railroad from Vorkuta to Salekhard and further - over Ural Mountains to forest tundra. When I arrived to the camp with other soldiers, who earlier took military service in Germany, we were told: "If you agree to work in troop of the Ministry of interior affairs and guard convicts, it will be taken into consideration. One day will go for two, and convictions will be abolished after discharge". So I got to "self-guard". I would say straightly: I got afraid. I saw slavish work and discrimination, tens of hundreds people are in camps of death. It seemed to me that bigger part of Russia's population sits in these camps. During my service I moved from camp to camp. I saw several tens of camps, including three colonies for women. What is a colony? More than 5000 people of convicts. Three tens of barracks 50 meters in length, plank beds, two stoves made of iron barrels. When they start heating, suffocating stench and smell of dirty human bodies accumulated in a barrack, water drops from the ceiling. People, who came from work were in wet clothes, went to work at the same state on the next day. More than 500 people were in one barrack. Norms of work were hard to get. Those, who could carry out the norm, received 1200 grams of bread. But majority of convicts did not fulfill the norm and they received 300 grams of bread. They received poor soup with codfish. After such food and hard work people died of different diseases every day . In winter dead bodies were put near the special barrack, then they were put to sledges and other convicts pulled them, moved tractor and put to quarry, where covered with ground with the help of bulldozer. During one such "move" 200-300 dead people were brought out. In 1949 convicts started the rebellion - they disarmed guards and went to the side of the town Vorkuta to set other convicts free. New forces from liberated camps joined to them, and at last the number of rebels reached for 70 thousand people. Moving they killed local population - because they betrayed runaways for money or vodka. High power learnt about runaways and measures were taken. Landing troops, planes, mortars, artillery was used, and during two weeks all rebels were killed. Rebels did not reach for our colony. And the following measures of precaution were taken: the whole 501st building was strengthened with guards with machine guns on watch towers, convicts were impounded to camps and they did not work. Shackles were put on some convicts, then they were brought to Vorkuta and nobody knows what happened to them. I was released when my term was finished. There was no system "a day for two". I and many other people like me were deceived. The power just did not have such number of soldiers to watch such number of convicts. When my term finished I received the passport for the first time, military men from bodies of the Ministry of interior affairs instructed me. They gave me a document to sign in order I would not tell everything I had seen. "Otherwise you will receive the same term as you had". Much time passed, I became the invalid of the second group, grey-haired and without health. It seemed another time came. When according to the Order of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR all participants of the war were awarded by the order of the Great Patriotic War and I went to the military office for my award. There they showed me a book and said: "You cannot receive it. You were accused by the military tribunal". I took the journal to my hands and read. The case was mine, but it was written that I served a communication soldier and not a secrete service man, as it was in real. I appealed with a letter to the Supreme Council. I received a document that in the given case local authorities should take measures - military office and executive committeeโฆ .โฆMarch of 1953 came. Till this time rails were laid on 700 kilometers out of 1500 from Vorkuta to Igarka and moving of trains was opened, even a passenger's train went once a day from Salekhard to Nadym. Stations and settlements, workshops and depots were built along the route. The sum of expenditures made 260 million rubles. Several days after Stalin's death the resolution was received from Moscow, - to stop completely the whole work on the road. Another resolution about transportation of people and materials and conservation of building followed after it. However after specialists calculated expenditures and received a big figure (9 signs) of expenditures, high power took another decision: to liquidate building. Something was brought to "The Big land", but the bigger part remained in tundra. Billiards of people's money, ruined lives, extra-human efforts, miracles of engineer mind, everything was in vain. It is still possible to find locomotives and wagons, red with rust, barracks of former camp settlements, barbed wire and the line of rails from the west of the east. "The dead road" is the name of Stalin's brainchild. Years passed and people again started appearing in the desert places - geologists, oil workers. Powerful gas and oil fields of Yamal's North started appearing near the old railroad. Some of old constructions were useful for the new people. The present level of mastering riches of the North set under the question the formulation, which is killing for Stalin's road, "there is nothing and nobody to transport here". Every year the opinion is expressed to restart building of some parts of the road near the Polar Ural - of course on the modern level. May be some sectors of "the dead road" will considerably simplify the work of modern builders in this case. Will it be so? Will "the dead road" get alive some day? - The question is expecting for solving. But whichever future waits for this road, history of its building should not be forgotten. We recall Stalin's repressions very often now. And it looks like all these "eternal" stories about un-guilty but accused people got boring. They were too many. It is impossible to stay unimpressed to swing of communist terror, having come to railroad Salekhard- Nadym, to be more precise, having seen what remained from it. And the fact is becoming obvious that recent part, memorable to old people, will press our society during long time. Guarding towers basically remained so well that it is possible now to "settle" guards there, kilometers of barbed wire "watch" barracks till now. It is more important to keep this history for future generations, every year "alive" witnesses of Stalin's repressions decay, exhibits in museums cannot present the whole picture of that time. In this regard Salekhard club of extreme tourism "Polar wolves" expressed the suggestion, which deserves proper attention. The idea, which was scrutinized many times, is simple: to make the documentary film, the place of making a film is Stalin's camps the 501st building. Materials for making the film are already made in the course of the expedition "The 501st world". This film will be another true page of the past, which will open the real picture of everything, what happened in concentration camps of the former Union. |
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By materials of the magazine "Yamal's Meridian", the newspaper "Krasniy Sever", documents out of the archive of the Okrug's museum of local lore of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug |
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