Top 10 Historic Sites in Far Eastern District, Far Eastern District

Reviewed By andrewmU2655XD

The visit to Dneprovsky was the main reason for our trip to Magadan. Geological expeditions were first done in the Magadan area in the 1920's.In the early 1930's, gold deposits were found, and this led to the creation of the Dalstroy company which was authorised to mine the area. Settlements known as Gulag camps, were built around the mine sites, and the workers were mainly the prisoners of the camps.The area around Magadan Oblast is also referred to as Kolyma. At the beginning of the Gulag system, the workers were actually paid a small stipend but this was soon ceased. The prisoners of the camps were mainly political, religious and ethnic persecuted. Most of the prisoners were transferred to the camps, as a result of Stalin's Great Purge (Great Terror) during the 1930's. During the war years, many prisoners of war were added to the camp population. It is documented that over 1 million workers died in the Soviet Gulag system. The Dneprovsky Camp started mining tin in 1941. It is one of the best preserved Gulag camps remaining in Russia. In 1941, the camps in the Magadan had a peak inmate population of 80,000 , whilst operating a maximum of 45 camps. This may be compared with the entire Kolyma region, which had a peak inmate population of 176,000 in 1941, and the Soviet Union which had a peak inmates of 1.5 million. The conditions at the camps were brutal, and particularly in the early days the chance of surviving was very low. The main tools used by the camp inmates were digging bars, pick axes, shovels, buckets and wheelbarrows. The camp was supplied with electricity from the Hita Power station. The ruins of which may be visited, as it is a short drive off the road of bones (Kolyma Highway) to Magadan. The camp also used huge generators , pumps, trucks and other equipment which was mainly provided via the "land lease" program with the USA. The land lease program was an effort by the USA to supply equipment, including planes, to assist in the war against Nazi Germany. All the generators, pumps and other equipment were removed when the camp closed in 1953, but the buildings remain. A heating system was used to aid in the excavation of the tunnels due to the cold and icy conditions. We visited in summer, and there were visible ice patches at the entrance to the tunnels, most of which have collapsed over time. A heating tank, with pipes that led into the mines, and away from the mines is still on site. It gives an idea of the difficult working conditions in the mines. When the tin was extracted in clumps of rock, they were placed in huge carts which were run on iron tracks out of the mines and then dumped down shafts into processing areas. The inmates would sort the rocks on the manual conveyor system, which was made of wooden rollers. There were deposit chutes along the walls of these sorting buildings where the poor quality rocks were manually deposited. The items of good quality were pushed along the conveyor, and these loaded a truck parked below the building. The trucks then transported the load to a processing facility approx. 8 km away in the direction of the main road. This facility was burnt to the ground in recent years, but parts of the factory structure remain, and this area may also be visited in addition to the camp itself. We camped overnight, and walked the entire camp area, which took quite a few hours. The best preserved buildings can not be seen from the camp entrance. These buildings were in an unbelievably good state of preservation. We walked into the buildings, and viewed the different conveyor systems and dump chutes.Although the camp had been closed for almost 65 years, the doors and windows were still in working condition, and the structure was sound enough to explore.It felt as if we had stepped back in time, and were able to find samples of tin stones which we kept as a souvenir. The camp had a reputation of not having any escapees due to the barbed wire perimeter fences, and the many lookout towers posted on the hills surrounding the camp. Many of the lookout towers remain and we were able to climb a few and take photos. The most touching area of the camp is the graveyard, which is located near to the river which flows through the camp. A local church has placed an orthodox cross monument in memory of the inmates who died here. There are many graves on which rough wooden crosses have been placed. Each wooden cross has a tin marker, which probably had the inmates camp number. These numbers have disappeared over time as the tin has rusted. Other graves were covered with piles of stone sand did not have any crosses. Vegetation is growing amongst the graves, so it was difficult to view all the markers. The Deneprovsky camp turnoff is at km post 265 from Magadan, just after passing over a bridge with a river bebeath. It is a further 10-12km drive up into the hills on roads which require a 4WD. A local guide is a must, as once off the main road there are no signs.