Until the end of the 1980s, all information on the Gulag remained classified. It was only at the beginning of the thaw that statistics began to appear on the number of prisoners in the camp system. Today it is reliably known that in 1930-1956 up to 2.5 million people rotted in the camps at a time. More than 15 million Soviet citizens became victims of repression during the years of Stalinist terror. The overwhelming majority went through these terrible camps.
Ozerlag
Special Camp No. 7 of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs "Ozerny", also known as "Ozerlag", was the largest complex of its kind in the entire USSR. The production rates here were deliberately calculated for the exhaustion and death of prisoners. Often people died right at the railway construction site: the corpses were simply carried away into the forest.
Cannibalism
A prison on Sakhalin Island was known for its unusual brutality, even compared to other labor camps and prisons in Siberia. The local authorities did not hesitate to torture, prisoners could be flogged to death. In addition, there are known cases of cannibalism - the "enemies of the people" were fed terribly.
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Belomorkanal
In the first winter of the construction of the White Sea Canal, from 1931 to 1932, one hundred thousand prisoners died. That is, almost everyone who has had a hard lot to work directly on a heavy construction site. The following summer, the death rate slightly decreased, but already in the winter, the death of 120 thousand people was recorded.
Butugychag
In 1937-1956, on the territory of the modern Magadan region, there was a terrible Butugychag camp, famous for uranium and tin mines. The prisoners here had to mine uranium and tin by hand, without any protective equipment at all. According to some available information, medical experiments were carried out on the prisoners in Butugychag.
Torture and punishment
The guards, the VOKhR members, had their own torture methods. During interrogations, the victims were shoved into long sacks, after which they were beaten with sticks and whips. Relatives of prisoners were often subjected to bullying: they were mutilated and raped right in front of the prisoners, morally destroying people.
Sedimentation tanks
The guards rammed up to fifty prisoners on ten square meters of the camp cell. Cuddled together, unable to even breathe freely, people often died while standing. The corpses had nowhere to fall and the dead grinned at the faces of the living with their last smile.
Executions
In the north, the stages often arrived in the wasteland. There were no barracks yet, and at night the prisoners were herded into a pit, and during the day they were forced to build a labor camp. Emaciated people were not supposed to rest, after construction they were immediately transferred to work. In many camps of the Stalinist Gulag, there was a so-called "no last" rule: the guards shot every prisoner who was the last to join the brigade on the command "Get to work!"