In Russia’s arctic wilderness, the remnants of one of the Soviet Union’s most tragic gulag projects now lies largely forgotten.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/111FF09E-BA71-430C-8318-3D5E40CD8034_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A rotting railway bridge in the Siberian outback
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/A3C1D780-6D49-4050-872A-358607C1DDDD_900w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A punishment cell for prisoners
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/545C0D0B-BFC3-4703-BFF7-10D553C21F2C_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A guard’s watchtower in autumn forest
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/9C012E33-2788-41D5-AE7B-A02AD96B70B3_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
These are some of the ruins of Josef Stalin’s abortive “Transpolar Mainline” railway.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/6345E85B-F510-4236-88ED-35C140C7B436_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
From 1947 until 1953, tens of thousands of prisoners, many of them “politicals” convicted for “anti-Soviet acts,” were shipped to northern Russia to lay a railroad through some of the harshest terrain on Earth.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/9D1131B6-B88C-4913-8838-B3E1BF52CC33_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
The railroad would have connected Russia’s arctic waters with its western railway network. Most records relating to the gulag -- the brutal network of forced-labor camps for dissenters, criminals, and other perceived threats -- remain secret. But it’s likely that Stalin, spooked by the incursion of Nazi submarines into the Arctic during World War II, wanted the railway in place as a means of supplying a planned naval port. The railway also would have connected northern nickel mines to Soviet factories to the west.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/DA810F85-C4F1-476C-B7C3-B4A5C704A118_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
But just days after Stalin’s death, in 1953, the project was canceled amid the subsequent “thaw.”
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/B91CD0FF-85D0-46C7-84A8-A109EC44A26E_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Since then, the railway’s gulag camps have lain abandoned, sinking further into the forest under the weight of each winter’s snow.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/EEEA6467-D174-461D-B9B6-5B69D67C4D61_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Getting to the camps today is difficult outside of winter – with most lying beyond terrain that would bog a tank.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/D5E43E9B-6C72-48F3-91A5-BB40B2B9F988_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Only specialized vehicles, like this balloon-tired Trekol that we were in, are able to move through the swampy region where the railroad was laid.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/F8D1E793-F5FD-4152-B8C9-23D92CBA7123_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A hunter who roams the backcountry between Salekhard and Nadym led me to several of the camps.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/4346FDE1-163D-4E2D-B462-0AEB50A3C8C9_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A barbed-wire perimeter fence marking the edge of a camp.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/C36E8B08-D822-4E6C-84EA-54BA2B224156_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Inside, rotting bunks where prisoners once slept behind barred windows, watched by guards through a peephole.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/4F8BB6D7-EBB0-4ACA-AA91-3B67B4849059_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A food bowl near a derelict labor camp. Prisoners on the project recalled daily food rations of around 900 grams of bread, some millet porridge, and soup.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/45675C90-913A-406B-BD15-9A269C63E213_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A fishing net in the ruins of a barracks.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/CFA30677-A167-4191-86AF-BB8708355A19_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Punishment cells with metal-lined doors. Aleksandr Snovsky, a survivor of what Russians now refer to as the “dead road,” said those consigned to the cells received 200 grams of bread and a cup of water per day.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/33FC83E7-C7FF-4338-82EF-29446EC62ED7_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
As well as those sent away for 10-year sentences for anti-Soviet activities, the gulag camps of the railway were also occupied by hardened criminals, who were known to terrorize the genteel victims of Stalin’s repression.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/B331BCDD-2218-436E-B1D4-87C7EB3039C2_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A survivor recalls the hopelessness of escape. “Where to run -- there were just swamps and midges! [Escapees] were cruelly punished: They were caught, stripped naked, and tied up until the gnats bit them to death within two to three hours.”
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/F87B40AF-747F-4C9D-90CA-ACB3F483F241_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
But the biggest threat to survival, according to another former prisoner, came from the brutal winters, which frequently dropped below -40C.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/956AC86C-2E94-476A-8719-FA7DCF13C907_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Prisoners were split into gendered barracks. Snovsky says the men would secretly throw letters into the female zone, as well as a rather unique contraband.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/A107E38C-E799-4D92-917D-933CB447CC2C_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
“Also, from the men's area we threw little bottles with a certain liquid with which the poor women hoped to become ‘mommies’ and get themselves out of penal labor.”
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/AAB9207A-8251-4222-ABCB-EFF74778BF12_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Near a labor camp, one of hundreds of the railway’s bridges, built to span the swampy terrain.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/B5977CD2-D09E-4049-8594-62D223690543_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A length of rail, forged shortly before Lenin’s Communists took power in Russia in 1917.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/A8C147A2-ADF9-4DE8-A280-ED940764622F_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Most engineers engaged on the arctic railway were free workers, while the heavy labor was carried out by prisoners.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/A93CC1CD-1B14-455A-A2AA-73D625184F2D_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Some remains, like this shack that once probably housed guards, have been maintained and regularly used by hunters.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/6EE46395-506C-4FBD-8407-BDCFE47BFEC6_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
Inside, the communist star of a Stalin-era coal range stays sizzling hot through autumn nights.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/54C7E9D4-3CFA-49B1-A336-8DAF20C485B1_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
But most of the railway, like this signal marker, is falling into ruin.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/98BFAC8D-6026-4607-9910-D5CFA88E89AB_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A jar that once contained stewed pork. The reaction of local men who saw this photograph: “We need to put this on eBay!”
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/5CC9A8D0-6B28-4797-90DB-F3FC2D5BEAE1_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
At the largest museum in nearby Salekhard, RFE/RL was told there was no permanent exhibition devoted to the railway. Workers did open their collection, however, to reveal several personal effects of prisoners -- like this padded face mask, used to prevent frostbite.
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/5AD481AC-0997-4E90-B29B-82DAC7F4E71E_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
A memorial in Salekhard to victims of the doomed railway project. It’s nearly impossible to say how many forced laborers died in the effort. A witness recalls seeing a cemetery for prisoners that stretched “almost to the taiga. They didn’t put crosses on their graves, just small pegs with camp numbers.”
![](https://gdb.rferl.org/C6B9ED74-4130-4BDE-8168-303E10AFA24C_1600w_mw1600_q75_s.jpg)
For camp survivor Snovsky, who now lives with his wife near St. Petersburg (he fell ill the day before RFE/RL was due to meet with him), the biggest tragedy was the project’s futility: ”Tens of thousands of human lives for nothing. For me, the saddest thing was that it was for nothing.”