From the press release of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Perm Territory: “In January 1938, traditions were laid in the Usolsky forced labor camp of the NKVD of the USSR, which are still valuable today. This is loyalty to the Motherland, mutual assistance, respect for veterans. Usollag is thousands of kilometers of roads, hundreds of forest settlements, more than 60 thousand employees, workers and employees. <…> What courage its leaders, certified and civilian staff showed, so that the institution would get on its feet and successfully solve production and social problems!”
< p>On December 28, the Ministry of Justice announced its intention to organize forced labor for convicts in the north of the Perm Territory — in Berezniki and Solikamsk, at the enterprises of Uralkhim and Uralkali. They plan to send here those who received sentences for theft, theft, possession of drugs and other crimes of small and medium gravity. Those convicted under serious articles who have served a third of their term can join them.
84 years ago, the state already made a decision to develop the wealth of these places with the help of forced labor. Tens of thousands of people passed through the Usolsky forced labor camp (Usollag), which stretched for 130 kilometers from Berezniki to Krasnovishersk, during the 53 years of its existence, during the three years of the war alone, 10,758 prisoners died here.
And now, it seems, history is beginning to enter a new circle.
Why will people be taken to the north of the Kama region again for forced labor? And will the locals be happy with them?
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Forced labor is an “innovation” in the Russian penitentiary system, introduced in 2017. Instead of a colony, the court, at its discretion, may send a person to a correctional center, where the conditions of detention will be milder than in a correctional colony, but work will be mandatory. Convicts in correctional centers are allowed to use phones and even go out into the city — the main thing is to return to the center by the time set by the administration.
The main disadvantage of this type of punishment, which human rights activists note, is the inability to refuse work, even if it is for you unbearable. For this convict, in accordance with Art. 60.15 of the Criminal Executive Code, they can be transferred to a colony.
By and large, the «innovation» repeats the Soviet practice of «chemistry», when those convicted of minor crimes were sent to work in hazardous industries.
It is symbolic that new «chemists» will be sent to work at chemical enterprises. Uralchem and Uralkali are the largest producers of ammonia and ammonium nitrate, urea, and potassium chloride in the post-Soviet space. Their total net profit for 2019-2020 is 85.3 billion rubles. The personal fortune of the main beneficiary of both companies, Dmitry Mazepin, is estimated at $800 million (61 billion rubles).
Dump of a potash mine in Berezniki. Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
Part 1. In the dark
“It was very cold that winter, there was no appropriate clothing, and the norm had to be done. <…> People were dying, the corpses were taken to the cemetery after the beep at 12 o’clock, at night” (E. Grib, foreman of the repair group in Usollag).
January 13, 2022. Berezniki, «the chemical capital of the Urals». Management of the Azot enterprise of the united company Uralchem.
— No, no, you see, we don't know anything ourselves. Moscow has decided this, it is not our competence. We are just a branch, and decisions are made there, — explains to me the impossibility of telling anything about the work of the convicts, the deputy director of Azot, Ekaterina Voznesenskaya.
The industrial giant, occupying 188 hectares on the banks of the Kama, smokes with red-gray pipes, mixing white clubs with benzopyrene and nitric oxide to the gloomy sky of Berezniki.
— But they will work with you, not in Moscow, I insist. — Do you really have no information, how many of them will be, what kind of work they will do? Where will the correctional center be built?
— No, you need to call Moscow.
The overconcentration of power in the capital, even at the corporate level, produces paradoxical results. And if the deputy director of Azot is at least aware of the initiative of the authorities, then the workers know nothing at all about the imminent arrival of convicts at the enterprise.
Is this some kind of official information? Vladimir Semyonov, chairman of the Uralkhimovsk trade union, is sincerely surprised. “This is the first time I hear from you. No one, of course, discussed this with the trade union committee. And how will they work? We have skilled labor…
< p> The workers of the Uralkali mine in Solikamsk. Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
He refuses to comment further, saying: “We need to figure it out.”
A similar picture is at Uralkali. Although this enterprise is controlled by Uralchem, which holds 81.47% of the shares, it has its own trade union and its own departments in Berezniki and Solikamsk. And there, too, nothing is known about the involvement of convicts in the work.
— As far as I know, this is now a memorandum: the parties have reached such and such an agreement. And there are no specifics yet. It seems that the “road map” will be worked out in 2022-2024,” says Anton Subbotin, head of the information department of Uralkali.
In Berezniki and Solikamsk, in general, few people know about the intentions of the management of the city-forming enterprises.
Neither in the official media, nor even in the corporate newspaper of Uralkali and Uralkhim Ru.Da, which is published with a circulation of 25,000 copies unprecedented for these places, is it reported that agreements have been reached with the Federal Penitentiary Service.
And most of the residents sleep peacefully, and those who know about the agreements are seriously alarmed.
Some questions
The only local media that excited its readers with news about the convicts in Berezniki was the independent Novaya Gorodskaya Gazeta. On December 29, the publication published a post on VKontakte with a quote from Minister of Justice Chuichenko: “Cooperation between public authorities and socially responsible businesses will affect the reduction of recidivism and help develop the country’s economy.” And although from a formal point of view, the minister said everything correctly, Berezniki took the initiative with undisguised apprehension. » />
Elena Kazakova. Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
We meet with the editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Elena Kazakova, in the editorial office, which occupies only two offices in the «office» equipped in a Soviet three-story building. Elena reads typical comments on the news about the agreement.
— “Thirty years ago, Berezniki refused to have this special contingent with us, citing high crime in the city. Now return back. What jobs will they fill, where is the shortage? Where will they live? Uralchem, where it started, is returning to that. Free labor of convicts”; “In 1989–90, under pressure from the public, the deputies decided to remove them [condemned to forced labor, “chemists”] from the city. I remember it perfectly, the townspeople breathed a sigh of relief.
Other comments are much less common — calling to see convicted people, not criminals.
— We received a very large response: social networks, calls. The main concern of everyone was security issues. Who will arrive? Where will they live? How will they be protected and will they be at all? For some reason, everyone is sure that those convicted under serious articles will be brought to us,” says Kazakova. And sighs. “It’s just that all this has already happened in the history of our city, and the memories of the late Soviet period, when there was a special commandant’s office here, are very difficult. And in the late nineties and early 2000s, when there was an increase in crime in Berezniki, even the authorities associated it with a large number of former convicts living in the city … .jpg» class=»SingleImage_image__3qIDn» alt=»» />
Artem Faizulin. Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
“Yes, there was growth then,” confirms the former Berezniki policeman, and now a private lawyer and human rights activist Artem Fayzulin. — I started working [in the police] in 1997, and for the first four years of my work there was a real “wave”. It was common crime: robberies, burglaries. In winter, hats were “torn”, earrings. 8-10 crimes a day could only be capped. And all these people who committed crimes — former inmates, their children — they lived compactly, everyone knew the addresses of dysfunctional houses: Leo Tolstoy, 56; Sverdlov, 51; Lomonosov, 147 … There was cheap housing. And then these houses began to be gradually resettled, the police did their work, the enterprises of the city created a fund, at the expense of which people's squads were formed. And we have come to the conclusion that now there is no crime on such a scale.
Kazakova, however, notes that she sees pluses in the initiative to return the convicts to Berezniki.
— I understand that the penitentiary system should correct people. And in the process of labor, when a person creates something, does something, earns (!), one can soon expect that he will be reeducated. From this point of view, the idea is, of course, a good one.
On the other hand, she says, there are many questions about the initiative.
—How long will these people be brought here? Will it be convicts-specialists who know how to work at chemical enterprises? There are a lot of fears.
You see, the young, the most passionate, the smartest are already leaving Berezniki — the climate here is unfavorable, the city is industrial, industrial, man-made accidents occur (I mean the famous Berezniki failures, because of which part of the city was recognized as dangerous for living. — I. Zh.), there is no opportunity to get a quality education. And it turns out that they want to replace those who are leaving with convicts? It seems to me that this will reflect badly on the situation in the city, which is already not very kind. «/>
Uralkali plant management in Berezniki. Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
Fayzulin says that he does not see anything positive in the coming changes.
“Even on the psycho-emotional level, an association with the Gulag immediately arises. Because this is the heritage of our city. It was built by the hands of prisoners. In the 1980s, there was a special commandant's office to attract conditionally convicted persons to compulsory labor. And many of them stayed here. This left its mark on the entire socio-economic life of Berezniki, on the criminogenic situation. I saw it. Unfortunately, many of these people are poorly socialized. And bring them here in large numbers…” he spreads his hands. “It seems to me that the efforts of the state should be aimed at ensuring that some enterprises, factories, work in general appear in the place of serving the sentence, in the colonies themselves.
Part 2. Usollag
When discussing the issue of forced labor, the topic of the GULAG inevitably arises in Berezniki in one way or another. The second largest city in the Perm Territory was indeed rebuilt by prisoners. They even joke sadly here: “Pervostroiteley Square, do you think it was named after Komsomol members?”
Founded in 1932 to develop the Verkhnekamskoye potassium-magnesium salt deposit, six years later Berezniki became one of the strongholds of Usollag.
Usollag. Photo from the archive
— It was one of the largest camps in the Urals, which existed from 1938 until the very collapse of the USSR. Moreover, there is no exact information about how many people passed through it. But it is quite clear that these are tens, and maybe hundreds of thousands of prisoners, because on January 1, 1942 alone, more than 38,000 people were kept in the camp,” says Robert Latypov, head of the Perm “Memorial” *. — At the same time, from 25 to 40% were convicted under the infamous 58th article (“Counter-revolutionary activity”), and many more ended up in Usollag because of draconian economic legislation: being late for work twice — get five years in the camps.
Information about the number of prisoners and their mortality in Usollag is, indeed, only fragmentary. But even from what we have, one can imagine the scale of the tragedy that unfolded on the Kama land. According to the Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History, 6741 prisoners died here in 1941 and 1942, and 4017 in 1944.
— The dislocation of the camps was temporary. Usollag mainly specialized in logging: accordingly, when the forest was cut down in one place, the camp was transferred to a new one, Latypov explains. “And since the forest zones were temporary, the prisoner cemeteries were also temporary. When people, for example, died in the winter, their bodies were piled up in one of the barracks, and only in the spring, when it became possible to dig, they buried, put a peg, and that's it: the camp is closed — no one looks after the cemetery. Now it is impossible even to determine where these cemeteries were located.
In 1942, Labor Army soldiers were mobilized in Usollag — mostly Volga Germans, who were considered «unreliable people». 4945 people (by 1944 there were already 6245). After the collapse of the USSR, with the support of the administration of the Perm Territory, a collection of their memories of camp life was published.
- “In literal translation, the labor army means the workers' army. In reality, they were forced labor camps, surrounded by a high barbed fence with armed guards. The conditions in which the Labor Army of German nationality worked and lived were not inferior in cruelty to the content of criminals in the colony. We were accompanied to work by a convoy that had orders to shoot at the slightest suspicion. Arbitrariness of the authorities reigned in the camp itself. In poverty, humiliation, overcrowding, from hunger, a huge number of Labor Army soldiers died, ”said Wilhelm Mitsel, a native of Zaporozhye, mobilized to Usollag at the age of 18.
- “Hungry, poorly dressed, we walked for several kilometers in single file through deep snow, and when we got to the place, we were already exhausted, and ahead was a whole day of work. First, the snow around the tree had to be cleared to determine how high the stump should be. It is necessary to saw a tree skillfully so that it falls into the intended place and does not kill anyone from the neighboring link. <…> We had to work on a small patch, which the guards outlined with skis. If by mistake you go beyond the marked place, you will receive a bullet «for trying to escape.» <…> To get a full ration — 750 grams of bread — you need to give 6 cubic meters to each lumberjack. To do this, you have to work all 11 hours, in the sweat of your brow, without straightening your back, when there is nowhere to take strength from, ”said feller Isidor Baumgertner.
According to Latypov, with potash production in Berezniki and Solikamsk prisoners of Usollag were also directly connected.
— Any potash management is a big infrastructure. In order for it to have electricity, it is necessary to build a thermal power plant, and the thermal power plant was built by prisoners. Mines need to be reinforced with wood — and the prisoners supplied the wood. They also built enterprises for processing. Not to mention houses for civilian employees and administration.
Today, Berezniki and Solikamsk have a twofold attitude towards their camp heritage.
On the one hand, the townspeople are afraid of the return of the convicts and speak about it, as well as about the Gulag, with fear. On the other hand, in 2013, the 75th anniversary of Usollag was celebrated here, with solemn speeches and a concert.
Museum of the History of the Usolsky ITL in Solikamsk. Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
There was also a small museum of the Usolsky ITL in Solikamsk. Now it has been renamed the Museum of the History of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Perm Territory, and its exposition is based on portraits of the heads of correctional camps and employees who took part in the Great Patriotic War. The head of the museum, retired colonel of the Federal Penitentiary Service Sergey Erofeev, speaks about the camp in a streamlined way, although he admits «excesses». alt=»» />
Sergey Erofeev. Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
— 1938 was a “fun” time. For any nonsense it was possible to leave for the zone. Now I will read one sentence to you, — he takes out a copy of the document typed on a typewriter and quotes. — “The defendants Titov, Aksenov, Rozhkov met with each other throughout 1937 and partly 1936, conducted counter-revolutionary conversations aimed at discrediting the policy of the party and the Soviet government … Abramov Mikhail Agafonovich in April-May 1937, in his apartment, told the defendant Aksenov counterrevolutionary invention. It seems that such an accusation is about nothing,” he notes. — But the sentence: ten years, ten years, seven years, five years.
In the filing of the newspaper “Struggle for the Forest” published in Usollag, I find a curious note under the heading “Shirker Not Punished”: “The chief accountant of the Bulatovsky camp Suslov P.S. On August 10, he left work two hours earlier (at 4 o'clock). When asked by employees why he left work earlier, Suslov replies: “None of your business. I don't report to you.» And those to whom Suslov is obliged to report do not pay attention to absenteeism. Signature: Knowing. The further fate of the accountant Suslov is unknown.
Stands next to the museum monument to F.E. Dzerzhinsky. Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
The head of the museum, Erofeev, has a positive attitude towards the return of convicts to forced labor in Berezniki and Solikamsk: “Let them work, it’s better than idleness in a colony,” he notes. And he says that freedom in correctional centers is very relative: “Yes, convicts can go into the city. But after all, with the permission of the administration! Whether the administration will allow it or not will already depend on the behavior and the real need.”
During the years of its existence, many famous people have passed through Usollag: Reverend Kuksha of Odessa, canonized in 1994, historian Mark Botvinnik, film producer Vasily Yemelyanov, poet Mikhail Tanich. Now in Solikamsk, only two colonies remain from the heritage of Usollag: IK-9 of a strict regime and the famous «White Swan», where three hundred people are serving life sentences. In Berezniki, nothing remains of the camp past, except for the actual city buildings and historical memory. And the locals don't seem to be upset by this…
Special regime colony «White Swan». Photo: Arden Arkman/Novaya
Part 3. Who benefits?
In Berezniki and Solikamsk, no one can explain why the leading city enterprises needed forced labor of convicts . Indeed, there are no signs of a crisis at Uralchem and Uralkali. Profit figures for 2019–2020 are not just good, they are impressive: 4.4 billion and 80.9 billion rubles, respectively.
All respondents interviewed by Novaya Gazeta say that the chemical giants are doing an excellent job with the social burden: they are building sports and cultural facilities, infrastructure for the developing right-bank district of Berezniki, and helping with landscaping.
According to the editor-in-chief of Novaya Gorodskaya Gazeta , the initiator of attracting convicts to work at Uralchem and Uralkali was not the enterprises themselves, but the state.
“It seems to me that they were simply asked,” says Elena Kazakova. And although he admits that there is a personnel shortage at the mining departments in Berezniki (a whole page in the corporate newspaper is devoted to vacancies), he notices that vacant positions require high qualifications, and he does not believe that convicts will be involved in these works.
White Swan Colony Building previously referred to to Usollag. Photo: Arden Arkman/»Novaya»
Artem Fayzulin also believes that it is unlikely that convicts will be involved in highly skilled work at chemical enterprises. And he does not see the need for their employment as laborers, because then it is not clear what to do with existing employees.
— I can only assume that Uralchem and Uralkali need this whole story to emphasize their high affiliation with the state. Today it is not redundant. They were the first to respond to the initiative of the Ministry of Justice, a kind of pioneers: they showed that they considered the signal of the authorities.