Comments on: Gulags: Then and Now

By: Jenn

Jenn — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 23:01:18 +0000

The pictures are haunting. For further reading, check out the book “Remember Us: Letters from Stalin’s Russia”. The corresponding web site has a collection of letters written IN THE MOMENT, not memoirs, that somehow traveled out of the country. Some further disturbing info.

By: ie

ie — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:09:56 +0000

the photo of the watchtower appears to have a guard standing eerily below it.

By: BoredQuiz

BoredQuiz — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 20:24:04 +0000

Those drawings are plain scary and really emphasize the terror that occurred there.

By: Bill

Bill — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:32:25 +0000

Don’t be surprised when Erik Estrada is hawking Home sites in this area.

By: PeleKen

PeleKen — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:19:21 +0000

@ Supernovah.
It would be one thing if you could just avoid saying anything bad about Stalin and avoid the Gulags. However, often the Gulags were unavoidable. Regions had to fill quotas like our police have quotas to hand out speeding tickets. If you failed to turn enough people in, you were a traitor and sent instead (or killed).

By: Supernovah

Supernovah — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 00:36:36 +0000

Their own fault.
You blaspheme you go to hell.
You talk down Stalin you go to Gulag.
One in the same isn’t it?

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 22:33:38 +0000

Try this as well, an essay on the regrettably limited film record of death and deportation from the Baltic states and the Ukraine. See the website.

By: Karen

Karen — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:45:37 +0000

Thank you for a great post in honour of the passing of one of the 20th centuries most important writers of fiction AND non-fiction. I can honestly say that reading THE GULAG ARCHIPELAGO changed my life. It is one of the few books that I re-read on a regular basis. Anyone with even a passing interest in 20th century history and how it affected the common man should read A DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH.
For another perspective on Stalin’s Gulag system you should read KOLYMA TALES by Varlam Shalamov. The Kolyma camps were some of the worst, where life expectancy was measured in weeks. And yet, Shalamov has gathered a collection of stories that celebrate the enduring spirit of humanity.

By: MacroPhotos.net

MacroPhotos.net — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:25:46 +0000

Wow, those shoes and those drawing, any translations?

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:16:34 +0000

People may be interested in Karlo Steiner, a former Austrian communist exiled to the USSR and his brush with the gulags, as written in his Seven Thousand Days in Siberia book.