Perm-36: the only surviving Soviet Gulag camp shown by a Russian youtuber

@ElentirENG ES 4·19·2022 · 23:50 1

During the Soviet communist dictatorship, the largest network of concentration camps in history (423) was built, a network popularly known as the Gulag.

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A total of 18 million people passed through these concentration camps, the vast majority for political or religious reasons. More than a million people died in them. The Gulag became a name associated with the terror promoted by communism not only in the USSR, but also in other countries, since many citizens of Poland and other countries that remained in the Soviet orbit after World War II ended up being deported to that network of concentration camps.

Last year, Elina, a Russian YouTuber who edits the Eli from Russia channel, wrote the following: "Lately Russian propaganda has been justifying the GULAG camps. On May 26, 2021 the largest news agency RIA Novosti published an article explaining that Stalin's labor camps were not so terrible anymore, but on the contrary, Stalin’s camps were useful for the citizens." You can read the RIA Novosti article to which Elina refers here.

Elina added: "I've decided to make this video so that more people know what Gulag really is, learn its history and what life there was like. Perm 36 is the only GULAG camp (Soviet union forced labor camp) that was preserved in Russia, and everything here is kept the way when the camp functioned. All the other camps were demolished after dissolution of the Soviet Union."

Located in the city of Perm, Perm-36 was built in 1946 and closed in 1987, four years before the demise of the USSR. I do not know the fate of this camp, since Perm-36 was preserved as a museum of repression by the NGO Memorial, outlawed a few months ago by the Putin regime. You can see here the video published by Elina (it is in English):