Karlag (Karaganda Corrective Labor Camp, Russian: Карагандинский исправительно-трудовой лагерь, Карлаг) was one of the largest

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 ...

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 ...

s, located in

Karaganda Oblast Karaganda Region (; ) is a region of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Karaganda. The region borders Akmola and Pavlodar Region to the north, Abai Region to the east, Jetisu, Almaty, and Zhambyl Regions to the south, and Kostanay and Ulytau regions ...

(now

Karaganda Region Karaganda Region (; ) is a region of Kazakhstan. Its capital is Karaganda. The region borders Akmola and Pavlodar Region to the north, Abai Region to the east, Jetisu, Almaty, and Zhambyl Regions to the south, and Kostanay and Ulytau regio ...

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 ...

Kazakh SSR The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Kazakhstan, the Kazakh SSR, KSSR, or simply Kazakhstan, was one of the transcontinental constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Located in northern Centr ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. It operated during 1930—1959.

History

It was established in 1931 during the period of settlement of remote areas of greater USSR and its ethnic republics. Cheap labor was in high demand for these purposes. People were arrested and transported from west of the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

to the gigantic labor camp in central Kazakhstan spanning from

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 ...

in the north to the

Chu River The Chu is a river in northern Kyrgyzstan and southern Kazakhstan. Of its total length of ,Чу (река)

in the south. Later, after

WWII World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, another wave of prisoners poured in, constituting Soviet former POWs held captive by the Nazis before the Red Army returned them to the Soviet Union. Many Karlag inmates were prisoners sentenced as "enemies of the people" under

Article 58 Article 58 of the Russian SFSR Penal Code was put in force on 25 February 1927 to prosecute those suspected of counter-revolutionary activities. It was revised several times. In particular, its Article 58-1 was updated by the listed sub-articles ...

RSFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

. Over 1,000,000 inmates in total served in Karlag over its history. One of the main reasons for creating Karlag camp was the establishment of a large agricultural base supported by free labor for rapidly growing industry in central Kazakhstan -

Karaganda Karaganda (, ; ), also known as Karagandy (, ; ; ) (also sometimes romanized as Qaraghandy), is a major city in central Kazakhstan and the capital of the Karaganda Region. It is the fifth most populous city in the country, with a population o ...

Coal Basin in particular. The camp was founded on uninhabited empty steppe and grew fairly quickly within the first couple of years with the help of neighboring regions of the north and south. The total territory of Karlag was about , out of which only was dedicated to agriculture, while the rest was used for pasture. As Karlag territory expanded, it absorbed some civilian settlements which included ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Germans who had moved to the area between 1906-1907. As a result, in 1931 those civilian settlements were forced to relocate by

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 ...

forces.

Collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member- ...

of the steppe, forced relocation, and confiscation pushed them to the city of Karaganda and its neighboring regions. Karaganda was just starting to build coal mines, so many of these resettled people were used as cheap labor. Confiscated sheep, camels, cattle, and horses were transported to the newly formed "Eastern Meats" (Vostok Myaso) organization, which processed it in order to feed the labor force. The empty lands of resettled people were soon filled with thousands of rows of inmates. Echelons of new prisoners came one after another from the central parts of the

Russian SFSR The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (Russian SFSR or RSFSR), previously known as the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and the Russian Soviet Republic, and unofficially as Soviet Russia,Declaration of Rights of the labo ...

. They quickly spread across the steppe building railroads, housing for livestock, housing for camp employees, barracks, and isolation units. Karlag wardens answered only to Gulag

in Moscow. No Soviet, state or local government organizations had any influence on the operations of the wardens and supervisors of the camp. It resembled a colony, with a heavy management apparatus. Its departments included: administrative-agricultural, planning and control, culture-educational, human resources, trade, supply-chain, transport, finance, political, medical, and more. In Karlag, the inmates' efforts built a meat-processing plant and a leather/fur-processing plant which produced leather products, furs and

valenki Valenki ( rus, ва́ленки, p=ˈvalʲɪnkʲɪ; sg valenok ( rus, ва́ленок, p=ˈvalʲɪnək)) are traditional Russian winter footwear, essentially felt boots: the name ''valenok'' literally means "made by felting". They are not wa ...

Modern times

In 2001 a was established in , Karaganda Region. In 2020 in Zhanalyk village (

Rus Rus or RUS may refer to: People * East Slavic historical peoples (). See Names of Rus', Russia and Ruthenia ** Rus' people, the people of Rus' ** Rus, a legendary eponymous ancestor, see Lech, Czech and Rus * Rus (surname), a surname found in Ro ...

. Жаналык) local farmers excavated remains of at least 55 victims of NKVD executions.

Notable inmates

* Nina Anisimova (dancer) (1909-1979), Soviet dancer and choreographer * Arkadiy Belinkov (1921–1970), writer * Margarete Buber-Neuman (1901–1989), German writer *

Alexander Chizhevsky Alexander Leonidovich Chizhevsky ( rus, Алекса́ндр Леони́дович Чиже́вский, p=tɕɪˈʐɛfskʲɪj; 7 February 1897 – 20 December 1964) was a Soviet Union, Soviet-era interdisciplinary scientist, a biophysics, biophy ...

(1897–1964), scientist *

Esther Frumkin Esther Frumkin (; 1880 – 8 June 1943), born Malkhe Khaye Lifshitz and also known as Mariya Yakovlevna Frumkina, was a Belarusian Bundist revolutionary and publicist and Soviet politician who served as leader of the General Jewish Labour Bund ...

(1880-1943), Belarusian Bundist revolutionary and publicist and Soviet politician * (1895–1970), Slovak writer * Alexander Grigoriev (1891–1961), painter *

Hanna Kohonen Hanna Kohonen (née Johanna Rönkkö; 11 October 1885 – 22 February 1944) was a female Social Democratic Party of Finland politician. She was a member of the Parliament of Finland from 1916 to 1918. She supported the Reds in the Finnish Civil W ...

(1885-1944), Social Democratic Party of Finland politician, member of the Parliament of Finland *

Herminia Naglerowa Herminia Naglerowa nee Fisch (born 28 October 1890 in Zaliski near Brody, died 9 October 1957 in London) was a Polish writer and publicist. In the youth she wrote poems under the pen name Jan Stycz. Naglerowa studied history at the University o ...

in camp ''

komandirovka A lagpunkt (), literally "camp point" or ''lagotdelenie'' (, literally "camp detachment), may be translated as "subcamp", "camp unit", or "camp site" was a separate settlement subordinated to a major Gulag forced labor camp. Lagpunkts were conven ...

'' in .Zwycięstwo literatury nad totalitaryzmem. W 60. rocznicę śmierci Herminii Naglerowej
*

Vasile Pop Vasile Pop (1789 – March 6, 1842) was an Imperial Austrian ethnic Romanian physician. Born into an intellectual family in Chimitelnic, Mureș County, Transylvania, he began his education at the Greek-Catholic gymnasium in Târgu Mureș. He t ...

(1921-2009), engineer *

Abilbek Nurmagambetov Abilbek Nurmagambetov (, ''Äbılbek Nūrmağambetov''; ; 29 December 1927 – 19 September 1998) was a Soviet and Kazakh linguist- etymologist. Biography Nurmagambetov was born on 29 December 1927 in the settlement of Zhartogai, Torgai regi ...

(1927-1998), Soviet and Kazakh linguist-etymologist * Nora Rubashova (1909-1987) Belarusian Catholic nun *

Zinovy Shulman Zinovy Shulman ( ''Zinoviy Borukhovich Shul'man'' 1904–1977), was a Soviet Jewish singer (tenor) known for singing Yiddish art songs. He was the son of the cantor Borukh Leib Shulman (1870-1963) and was great-grandson of the writer Kalman Schul ...

(1904-1977), Soviet Jewish singer *

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and Soviet dissidents, dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag pris ...

(1918–2008), author, critic of the Gulag system *

Ülo Sooster Ülo Ilmar Sooster (October 17, 1924 in Ühtri, Käina Parish – October 25, 1970 in Moscow) was an Estonian nonconformist painter. Ülo Sooster was born the village of Ühtri on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa. He was the son of Johanne ...

(1924-1970), Estonian modernist artist * Bulach Tatu (1902-1980), participant in the struggle for the establishment of Soviet power in Dagestan and the first Komsomol woman in Dagestan *

Nikolay Urvantsev Nikolay Nikolayevich Urvantsev (; – 20 February 1985) was a Soviet geologist and explorer. He was born in the town of Lukoyanov in the Lukoyanovsky Uyezd of the Nizhny Novgorod Governorate of the Russian Empire to the family of a merchant. He ...

(1893–1985), geologist and explorer

References

{{Authority control Camps of the Gulag Karaganda Region Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic