Varlam Shalamov, a writer, the author of the worldwide-known ‘Kolyma Tales’ was twice imprisoned in GULAG. The ‘‘Don’t believe, don’t fear, don’t ask…’ GULAG and its Virgil’ exhibition is dedicated to the writer’s camp experience and accounts.
Shalamov was arrested for the first time in 1929 and sent to Vishera Special Camp, VISHLON, GULAG, the Chief Administration of Camps came into being. VISHLON was the country’s first labor camp which built factories: Vishera Pulp-and-Paper Mill and Berezniki Chemical Plant. Shalamov started his term as an ordinary con but finished it as a staff worker at one of the divisions of the camp department, and witnessed the birth of GULAG, the special-to-correctional camp conversion, and the beginning of prisoner super-exploitation.
Shalamov’s second arrest occurred in 1937, just before the Great Terror, and was sent to Kolyma, to GULAG’s most horrible enclave. Shalamov thrice came to be on his last legs while mining and survived by a miracle, he witnessed GULAG evolve from correctional camps to ‘destructional’ ones where prisoners were super-exploited beyond all limits and dehumanized.
High-resolution design layouts of the booth-type exhibition versions in Russian and in English can be downloaded from this website, and used to print the exhibition on exhibitional banners in any large-format printing shop.
