PERM-36 Gulag Museum, Russia
In 1946, Joseph Stalin built a camp in Kutchino, near Perm, Russia to produce lumber for post-World War II reconstruction. By 1972, it became a ‘reformatory camp’ or GULAG for prisoners charged with political crimes. Offenses might include writing and distributing anti-communist material, advocating human rights, or opposition to communism. Perm-36 had some of the harshest conditions of all the GULAGs.
Prisoners were performed hard labor, cutting dense Ural-region forests. Within the GULAG there was a special barrack, the ‘special treatment detention block.’ Prisoners were locked inside almost all day, with a group of two, four, or six people. For ten years, this group and the guards would be the only people prisoners saw. Perm-36 is the only remaining camp of its kind in Russia. Most camps were destroyed in the early 1990s after communism fell. Its preserved buildings serve as a museum and memorial to the GULAG system.
