Unzhlag Explained

57.7186°N 44.8158°WUnzhlag or Unzhensky ITL (Unzhensky corrective labor camp) (Russian: Унжлаг, Унженский ИТЛ) was a camp of the GULAG system of labor camps in the Soviet Union. Named after the Unzha River, it has headquarters at the railway station Sukhobezvodnoye (Сухобезводное, Сухобезводная), Gorky Oblast. It operated from February 5, 1938 to 1960. The main operation was logging and wood processing industries, but also served a wide variety of other small-scale industries: construction, metalworking, railroad servicing, clothing, footwear, pottery production, etc. The camp had 30 sites (lagpunkts).^[1]

There is a small museum of Unzhlag on the private property of a local lore enthusiast Mikhail Shulegin in the village .^[2]

Notable inmates

• Yusif Vazir Chamanzaminli (1887-1943), Azerbaijani statesman and writer (imprisoned 1940, died January 1943)
• Dalia Grinkevičiūtė, Lithuanian school girl deported in June 1941 who later wrote a memoir about her experiences
• Lev Kopelev describes his experience in Unzhlag in his book, To Be Preserved Forever.^[3]
• , Belarusian literary critic, publisher, and cultural activist; served some of his time in Unzhlag, among several other camps.
• , Russian revolutionary and Soviet statesman, Menshevik.

Notes and References

1. http://www.memo.ru/history/NKVD/GULAG/ "Система исправительно-трудовых лагерей в СССР"
2. https://ling.hse.ru/news/785425636.html Экспедиция фольк­ло­ри­стов в Ма­ка­рьев­ский район Костромской области
3. Lev Kopelev, To Be Preserved Forever ("Хранить вечно"), 1976. Глава двадцать шестая. Сухобезводная. Унжлаг