A vörös khmerek által üzemeltetett egyik hírhedt börtön brutális kivégzéseiről vallott a kínzóközpont vezetője. Kisgyerekek koponyáját fatönköknek ütötték, a fogvatartottakat pedig acélhengerrel verték agyon - ismerte be. (more…)
- TO: Whom it may concern I am one of the millions of slave laborers who were part of Kolyma’s tragic past, and who, like so many nameless others, were slated to become historical dust and pass into oblivion in the Great Soviet Plan. I am one of those who experienced Stalin’s cruel terror, through painful incarceration in Kolyma’s gold mine and the hard labor camp at Magadan, in the severe arctic climate of Siberia. As one of the fortunate survivors of this insane era of Stalinism, Communism, and dehumanizing slave labor, I feel obligated to write about those who suffered and perished, and to preserve the truth of these events for future generations. Those few of us who survived must ensure that posterity holds these crimes as a warning against ambitious and cruel rulers who have neither understanding nor compassion for their fellow human beings.
The secrecy of Kolyma is still being continued. This land, though infamously steeped in human suffering and death, is still cloaked in mystery to the world. 
Western encyclopedias, documentary film, and journalism have barely flickered the light of a match within miles of this grim place. Traditional Russian secrecy, dating back to the Tsars, became a parallel of western policy towards the Soviet past, heedless of the countless unmarked graves and the bloodstains still to be found on the permafrost. The recent Russian illustrated publication “Magadan,” mentioned no slave labor in the development of this Kolyma’s capitol and shies away from any information that would discredit the place’s genocidal past. (more…)
With the dissolution of “Dalstroy” in 1957, the Soviets adopted a new labor policy altogether with regard Kolyma. While the prison population was still a part of the labor force, it mainly consisted of common criminals. The political side of it ceased to exist. To fill in the labor needs new manpower was recruited from all Soviet nationalities on a voluntary basis. Young men and women were lured to the frontier land of Kolyma with the promise of high earnings and better living. The introduction of modern technology made the cold country livable and one of the most prosperous regions in present-day Russia. Many of the new pioneers settled there, started families and made their homes in the place where slave labor was once the only productive force.
The research of British historian Robert Conquest, author of the book “Kolyma,” produced some gruesome information on the subject of mortality rate. According to him the death rate among the prisoners reached 30% in the first year and almost total in the second. 
The factors which contributed to such a high loss of life among the prisoners, in the first place, were the climatic conditions in winter which resulted in death and amputations due to frostbite; this was followed by the sub-marginal rations of food which destroyed men physically and mentally; and finely sickness of epidemic proportion like scurvy and dysentery which also took their toll. The above sicknesses did not qualify for hospitalization and treatment. (more…)
Far back in time, somebody of poetic talent had expressed the tragedy of the prisoners through lyrics composed to a soft, sad and melancholic tune. Inmates throughout the entire region of Kolyma sang these lyrics with many variations. Anatol Krakowiecki, the Polish author mentioned earlier, memorized the first verse, together with the musical notes and recorded them in his book. The verse in translation sounds as follows:
“I live on the coast of the Okhotsk Sea,
where the Far East ends;
I live in hardship and misery
building a new settlement here.” (more…)
All effort of the system was geared towards more efficient production of gold. Lack of modern methods and equipment drove the masters to resolve the mines’ inefficiency by increasing the number of the slave workers. They counted that such primitive means would ensure the maximum production at the minimum cost to the state. The basic idea was that this enterprise had to take care of itself, and produce lucrative returns to the state. (more…)
Slave labor would have been of little consequence to the Soviet economy without the infrastructure that enabled the movement of prisoners from the point of the labor source to the point of its utilization and eventual destruction. The Trans-Siberian Railway became the main thoroughfare that brought prisoners to intermediate points along the line from which they branched of to various places in the North. Its easternmost point, Vladivostok, was the intermediate stop for the prisoners scheduled for Kolyma. However, here the land route to the far Northeast corner of Siberia ended. The only available means to reach shores of Kolyma was by the way of the northern sea such as the Japan Sea and Okhotsk Sea. For this purpose a special fleet was organized with its base in Vladivostok. (more…)
The Moscow directors of the newly organized government agency, The Central Gold Monopoly, realized that effective exploitation of Kolyma’s gold fields could not reach the peak of productivity without advanced American technology. A group of their geologists and technocrats made a trip to California to acquaint themselves with American mining systems. They inspected some of the American mines and managed to recruit a few American engineers. That was, however, the limit of the assistance they got from the Americans. (more…)
Russian prospectors looking for gold came rather late into this North-East Siberian region, although the presence of this precious metal in its streams and valleys was common knowledge among the local nomadic tribes. However, as a result of their religious beliefs, these tribes were not willing to share this knowledge with the early Russian hunters and traders. The basic reason behind this had its roots in the teachings of their priests (shamans), to the effect that gold is “the root of all evil.” This aphorism tied up to an ancient legend among them that gold was mistakenly left behind, when at the beginning of times the heavenly stars were sent down by the Great Spirit to collect all gold from Earth, which caused plenty of wickedness among the people. 
Within this legend there was a prediction of human disaster on enormous scale if and when gold was removed from the frozen ground of Kolyma. The prophecy was later translated into the human calamity of Stalin’s purges that delivered millions of people into the cold and inhospitable land to die a cruel and horrible death. (more…)
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