Above The Arctic Circle, A Soviet-Era Metropolis Battles A 'Drawn-Out Death'
share Print VORKUTA, Russia -- In May 1931, a group of 39 prisoners toiling in the Soviet Union's expanding network of forced labor camps set off north from the town of Ukhta to explore the vast coal basin in the Russian Arctic. Joined by a team of geologists and camp guards, the men traveled for weeks through barely navigable waters and icy tundra into the frigid, inhospitable region that would test the limits of the lauded Soviet conquest of the Far North. They were soon joined by more prisoners, hundreds of whom died from sickness, hypothermia, and starvation. But by the spring of 1932, th...
Source: rferl.org