ALZhIR, the Akmolinsk Camp of Wives of Traitors to the Motherland (), was a colloquial name for the 17th special female camp detachment of the

Karlag Karlag (Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp, Russian: Карагандинский исправительно-трудовой лагерь, Карлаг) was one of the largest Gulag labor camps, located in Karaganda Region, Karaganda Oblast (now ...

, Karaganda

labor camp A labor camp (or labour camp, see British and American spelling differences, spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are unfree labour, forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have ...

of the

Gulag The Gulag was a system of Labor camp, forced labor camps in the Soviet Union. The word ''Gulag'' originally referred only to the division of the Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies, Soviet secret police that was in charge of runnin ...

in the

Akmola Region Akmola Region (, ; ) is a centrally located regions of Kazakhstan, region of Kazakhstan. It was known as Tselinograd Oblast during Soviet Union, Soviet rule. Its capital is Kökşetau. The national capital, Astana, is enclosed by the region, but ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

. The name comes from the fact that the majority of the inmates were the ChSIR: members of the families of traitors to the Motherland after

NKVD The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (, ), abbreviated as NKVD (; ), was the interior ministry and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1934 to 1946. The agency was formed to succeed the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU) se ...

Order 00486 of 15 August 1937. Over 18,000 women spent some time in the camp during its existence, and about 8,000 women served a full sentence there,История лагеря «АЛЖИР»
/ref> of which 4,500 were ChSIR. The name was an ironical joke of the inmates, because "Алжир" means "

Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...

" in Russian. It was established in August 1937 by the village of Malinovka (now ) southwest of Akmola (now

Astana Astana is the capital city of Kazakhstan. With a population of 1,423,726 within the city limits, it is the second-largest in the country after Almaty, which had been the capital until 1997. The city lies on the banks of the Ishim (river), Ishim ...

). Its total area was 30,000

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s. It was closed in the beginning of 1950''Kazakhstan National Encyclopedia''
p. 178
/ref> Today, the camp houses a museum-memorial complex of victims of political repression and totalitarianism, which opened on 31 May 2007 as part of an initiative of President

Nursultan Nazarbayev Nursultan Abishuly Nazarbayev (born 6 July 1940) is a Kazakhstani politician who served as the first president of Kazakhstan from 1991 to 2019. He also held the special title of Elbasy from 2010 to 2022 and chairman of the Security Council of ...

. After the closure of the prisons in 1953, it was reported that 1,507 of the women gave birth as a result of being raped by the guards. Several hundred of the women were ethnic Koreans, part of the

Koryo-saram Koryo-saram (; ) or Koryoin () are ethnic Koreans of the post-Soviet states, former Soviet Union, who descend from Koreans that were living in the Russian Far East. Koreans first began settling in the Russian Far East in the late 19th century. ...

community of Central Asia. There is a monument to these women, with text written in Korean and Cyrillic, at the location.

Notable inmates

*Sister of Marshal

Tukhachevsky Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky ( rus, Михаил Николаевич Тухачевский, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevskiy, p=tʊxɐˈtɕefskʲɪj; – 12 June 1937), nicknamed the Red Napoleon, was a Soviet general who was prominen ...

, wife and daughter of

Avel Enukidze Avel Safronovich Yenukidze ( ka, აბელ ენუქიძე, ''Abel Enukidze'', ; ; – 30 October 1937) was a prominent Georgian Old Bolshevik and, at one point, a member of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (b) ...

, wives of Saken Seifullin, and of many other notable

Kazakhs The Kazakhs (Kazakh language, Kazakh: , , , ) are a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia and Eastern Europe. They share a common Culture of Kazakhstan, culture, Kazakh language, language and History of Kazakhstan, history ...

. * Rachel Messerer, actress, wife of executed diplomat Mikhail Plisetski, mother of famous ballet dancer

Maya Plisetskaya Maya Mikhailovna Plisetskaya (; 20 November 1925 – 2 May 2015) was a Soviet and Russian ballet dancer, choreographer, ballet director, and actress. In post-Soviet times, she held both Lithuanian and Spanish citizenship.

* Shukriyya Akhundzada (1902-1993), wife of Azerbaijani poet Ahmad Javad, who penned the lyrics to the Azerbaijan National Anthem but who was executed in 1937.

Notable inmates

References

Further reading