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To: Running On Empty
Siberian gulag labor camp, Lubianka

A technical detail: There were thousands of labor camps in Siberia as well as in Northern Russia. Their location was dictated by the needs of the slave labor industry, which, economically speaking the Soviet penitentiary system was. The chief occupation in these was logging and mining; the chief killers were cold, malnutrition, guard cruelty and disease. The names were by nearby towns and villages, or just as likely simply by number.

Lubyanka or Lubianka is a street in Moscow, on which the NKVD (People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs) building stood and still stands. The organization is now called FSB, Federal Service of Security. One change since the Soviet times was the removal of the Dzerzhinsky (founder of NKVD) statue in front of it. The building also housed a interrogation prison for those under trial, and execution chambers. It is those who were not executed there who went to labor camps. "Lubyanka" came to signify the entire repression apparatus, in the same sense as "Wall Street" signifies American big business. It was not likely that there was a prison camp actually named "Lubyanka", -- the toponymic is not common in Russia and its derivation is obscure; the sound faintly suggests "Lubov" -- "love".


The NKVD complex (prior to 1991)

Lubyanka is the side street to the left of the older building. The Dzerzhinsky statue, removed in 1991, is visible near the left edge of the larger building. The traffic circle is still there, with no statue.


Holding cells in the 6-storey basement of the Lubyanka prison


Logging in labor camp, 1950's

This one was called Ozerlag (lake-camp, abbreviated). The caption says "prisoners of Ozerlag on logging and building of Tayshet-Lena railroad. V. P Ablamsky, photographer, from private collection of the author" (Source)

This can happen again, easily, anywhere.

28 posted on 11/18/2012 7:48:22 AM PST by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

Thanks so much for the information and the pictures.

You are so right!.. and it was my error.

Indeed it was at Lubianka (his spelling)Prison in Moscow where he was first taken for the crucible of his interrogation, which was torturous.

After that he went to a prison camp, Dudinka, ...and from then on is the rest of his story.

Thanks much for the correction and added information you give.


29 posted on 11/18/2012 10:06:55 AM PST by Running On Empty (The three sorriest words: "It's too late")
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