Gulag, repressions and political prisoners: memory and the present
The past in Russia's regions hasn't ended. It lies in archival files that descendants are not allowed to read, in prison colonies where political prisoners are kept separate from others, in monuments, and in debates about what constitutes history. This collection, "NotMoscow Speaking," features materials about the camps, repressions then and now, and the people who preserve the memory.
2026
Georgy Zhzhenov: The Actor Whom the Gulag Made Great
Arrested twice for espionage, Georgy Zhzhenov spent 15 years in the camps and became a great actor.
2026
Where does the Dead Road lead?
The Salekhard-Igarka road: one of the most pointless projects in the history of the USSR, abandoned just days after Stalin's death.
2026
Barracks for political prisoners
In the Magadan colony, political prisoners and deserters are kept separate from other prisoners.
2024
From Gulag to Gulag
A pensioner from the Volgograd region, whose father was exiled to Karlag, has been detained at pickets for more than ten years.
2024
"If the FSB shows these documents, the truth will be revealed."
For years, a Kemerovo resident has been suing the department, trying to find out the truth about his great-grandfather, but time after time he is denied.
2024
"Russians were arrested for God knows what, and Germans even more so."
How the descendants of Germans forcibly resettled to Ivdel preserve the memory of their exile and their parents.
2023
"Pitch-Bloody Hell": Former prisoners describe conditions in a Primorye prison colony where women are forcibly shaved.
Stories from former prisoners about conditions in Primorsky Colony No. 10 in the village of Gornoye.
2026
It turned out to be our Father...
On the anniversary of Khrushchev's report "On the cult of personality and its consequences."
2024
How a pensioner, convicted for two reposts on VKontakte, lived and why she received five and a half years in prison.
The story of 72-year-old Shakhty resident Evgeniya Maiboroda, sentenced to five and a half years.
2026
The man who was not swallowed by darkness
Oleg Volkov's camp odyssey.
2024
We are a country of unlearned lessons
The Vologda Oblast governor plans to erect a monument to Stalin; historian Ivan Dzhukha comments.
2024
"There was never a Gulag here."
How the heirs of victims and executioners in Kolyma are trying to "rethink" an inconvenient past.