The tenth episode of the «GULAG. Witnesses» project is dedicated to the convoy—one of the most terrifying experiences for prisoners of the Soviet labor camps.
The convoy was not just a journey to the GULAG—it was the first circle of hell. Prisoners were transported in cattle cars, packed 30–40 per wagon. Days and weeks without water, food, or fresh air turned people into mere shadows of themselves. The unbearable filth, extreme heat or freezing cold, disease, and death became an inseparable part of the journey. Many died along the way, their bodies simply discarded at railway stations.
Ida Varpakhovskaya’s story is one of thousands. She was arrested on the street, with a false promise that it was just a short interrogation. Her infant son was left behind at home, and she would not see him again for 16 years. The trial was a mere formality—she was sentenced to 8 years in a labor camp. Within days, she found herself in an overcrowded prison cell, and soon after, she was crammed into a train car filled with suffocating heat and unbearable thirst.
Those sent to Kolyma faced yet another horror—the journey by sea. Prison transport ships were disguised as regular passenger vessels. Here, mass «Kolyma tram» rapes took place, after which the bodies of dead women were thrown overboard.
The convoy was designed to break people before they even reached the camps. It stripped them of freedom, dignity, and hope. “Death no longer seemed frightening. Life itself was worse,” wrote Eugenia Ginzburg.
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