Perm-36 | The ONLY Russian Gulag Still Remaining Today

Did you know that you can still visit a Russian gulag today? 😁 Join me as I travel to Perm, in central Russia, to see the only Russian gulag still existing today.

Most Soviet gulags have been dismantled following the end of the Soviet labour camp program in the 1980s. However, a few miles north of Perm, one of the largest cities in central Russia, you can visit the site of a former gulag 🔦

In my quest to set foot in every single federal subject in Russia, the territory of Perm was number 30! Don't forget to follow me on Instagram for live updates @davelegenda 📷

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Here's where I stand as of now:

Moscow ✔️
Moscow Oblast' ✔️
Saint Petersburg ✔️
Leningradskaya Oblast' ✔️
Vladimirskaya Oblast' ✔️
Yaroslavskaya Oblast' ✔️
Ivanovskaya Oblast' ✔️
Krasnodarskij Kraj ✔️
Tulskaya Oblast' ✔️
Tatarstan Republic ✔️
Tverskaya Oblast' ✔️
Nizhegorodskaya Oblast' ✔️
Kaluzhskaya Oblast' ✔️
Murmanskaya Oblast' ✔️
Smolenskaya Oblast' ✔️
Ryazanskaya Oblast' ✔️
Astrakhanskaya Oblast' ✔️
Kalmykia Republic ✔️
Volgogradskaya Oblast' ✔️
Bryanskaya Oblast' ✔️
Udmurtia Rebublic ✔️
Yekaterinburgskaya Oblast' ✔️
Tyumenskaya Oblast' ✔️
Karelia Republic ✔️
North Ossetia-Alania Republic ✔️
Rostov Oblast' ✔️
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug ✔️
Republic of Crimea ✔️
Sevastopol ✔️
Permskij Kraj ✔️

Which means I'm at 30/85. Still 55 to go! Hopefully a lifetime will be enough ⚠️

Next to a semi-abandoned village 100 miles north of Perm, is central Russia, are the remains of one of the most popular Soviet labour camps in history 📛

It is the ONLY site in the world where the main buildings and structures of the gulags are relatively well-kept and it’s possible for adventurers to roam around 🙅🏻

What an experience visiting Perm and the Perm gulag was. The official denomination of this gulag was Perm-36. It was built in 1946 and remained operation until 1988. Since 1995, visitors have the chance to go on guided tours as the site is open to the public as The Museum of the History of Political Repression Perm-36, while being known popularly as the Gulag Museum.

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Traveling to Perm was actually quite fun - I jumped on a Pobeda flight from Moscow, leaving the Russian capital at midnight while arriving in the Urals at 4 in the morning. The flight was however only two hours long - the magic of traveling across different timezones.

I KNEW I had to get into Perm quite early because the gulag site is a bit far from the city and it's also quite difficult to reach. What I had to do was get on a bus for two hours, get off at a random point in the middle of nowhere, call a number to ask if the people from the museum could come and get me, and they did...awesome adventures in the middle of Russia. All of this, to visit the only remaining Russian gulag in the world!

What was the purpose of the gulags? They were essentially the prison systems of the Soviet Union, but they then became known in the west for the particularly harsh conditions that prisoners and convicts were subjected to.

How many people died in the gulag? It is impossible to know the exact amount of people who have passed through a gulag throughout the entire existence of the Soviet labour camp program, from the 1920s all the way to the years immediately preceding the collapse of the Union. That is because although the residential barracks were designed to host 200-250 prisoners at most, overcrowding was a common issue. Also, western estimations differ very much from the ones provided by Russian authorities. It is commonly believed that 18 million people have been gulag prisoners in total, with up to 1 million having died while imprisoned.

The Perm-36 labour camp was built in 1946 and remained operation until 1988, right until the very end of the Soviet gulag program. In 1972, the camp became specifically designated to house some of the most dangerous criminals and political dissidents of the Soviet Union ⚒

Walking around the rotting wooden buildings of the gulag is highly upsetting, as you are able to realise the terrible living and working conditions of anyone who was unfortunate enough to spend some time in Perm-36. The entire camp is divided into three main areas: the working area, the residential area, and the maximum-security area for extremely dangerous criminals.