The project was quickly destroyed by frost heaves and structural failures arising from underconstruction.
At least 11 locomotives and 60,000 tons of metal were abandoned, and bridges have decayed or burned down.
In the post-war period, it was clear to almost everyone in the leadership of the USSR that prisoners’ slave labour in the corrupt Gulag system was wasteful and desperately inefficient. Only Stalin failed to realize this and he was obsessed by similar construction projects.
To this day, it is still not completely clear – even to Russian historians – what made him want to link the uninhabited and hostile environment of Siberia’s Polar regions by railway. It was most probably for strategic reasons.
The northern part of Siberia was virtually unprotected from a military point of view. A railway that was passable all year round, culminating in a deep-sea port by the Arctic Ocean would have changed this situation. After all, fanciful plans for linking the regions of northern Russia with the Far East had already existed under the tsar. At that time, nothing was known about the richest deposits of Russian natural gas located in the region which have seen the railway undergo new development.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salekhard%E2%80%93Igarka_Railway
By the end of 1949, the number of prisoners who worked in construction was about 70,000 people. Along the route every 5-7 kilometers there were camps with 500 to 1,500 inmates – about half of them were convicted on political charges.
The entire route of the railway took place in the Arctic. Camp regime and harsh climatic conditions – thawed swamp, mosquitoes and midges in the summer and snow drifts and temperatures down to - 50 degrees in the winter
Immediately after the death of Stalin (5 March 1953), the new leadership of the USSR found the construction to be completely ineffective and work on it was quickly halted.
http://russiatrek.org/blog/history/transpolar-railway-the-dead-railroad/
http://www.stationgossip.com/2016/06/salekhardigarka-railway-stalins.html
http://www.gulag.online/articles/histrorie-mrtve-trati
Gulag is huge topic, very complex in it's rotten core. As just one of point, imagine that for first decades there was a quota that every region should "arrest" and send to Gulags every month. If you had quota of 100 men, then you arrest 100 men for ANYTHING, but for "something"... Soviet Union was not some barbaric lawless country after all. You could be arrested for "not be enthusiastic enough on party rally"... send for 5 years to Gulag... then for 5 more years, and 5 more and 5 more. The conviction to Gulag was often short, but when you once land in the system you would be arrested again and again. Sometimes mere minutes after you exit the gate of those camps.
ReplyDeleteOne of example of such "workside" was White Sea Canal. Maybe even more absurd than this.
I sometimes laugh when I read some youngster call USA a "police state". I'm 100% sure that creators of Archipelag Gulag would laugh too... 5 minutes in Archipelag would make that youngster cry and beg for some good 'ol US "police state".
I worn you lad, if you would like to dive more in to topic I recommend "The Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. But it is really a depressing literature, showing how rotten humans can be, how inhuman that system was. How low humanity can fall.
it's a lack of education on the history of the human race, even as recent as the WW2 era, that leads young people to make such stupid statements and get so caught up in their own drama (occupy wall street protest movement). They have no perspective. I'm 48, and think I've got a good idea about history, especially USA recent 100 years of history. But when I talk to young co-workers in their 20s? I feel they know so damn little.
DeleteYeah, not only young persons but many my age equal have very slim idea about historical events. Lack of historical education is indeed a problem, in school you are presented with short, cut down and simplified lessons of raw data that mostly lack context. If you want to know more, you need to invest your own time in to gathering more knowledge. I spend so much time trying to get more knowledge and I still know so little. But at the same time I know so much more than those youngsters, equals or many elders. But how you can learn about complex events with multiple elements if it take three paragraphs in your school history book. And it is the only time you will read about it. We learn history to not repeat mistakes... but this is so often forgotten.
DeleteBut you Jesse, you do a good fight. You post multiple great and interesting historical photographs that even if one person would like to know more about it and will put own time to get more knowledge about that topic. It will be priceless.
Thanks you! I also include 3 or 4 links to useful sites where I get a little bit of info that I edit down to a fast read, so if anyone wants more, the links are already there, and no links that suck, just the ones I found useful
DeleteThanks, there's a lot of hot headed things that young people in the U.S. say that if they only were better educated knew the truth would be a bit more respectful and appreciate what they have. "The Gulag Archipelago" is a depressing read, but significant, and one that still needs to be read because everything Solzhenitsyn told could happen again and is happening in other Dictatorships like North Korea.
DeleteA pointless project that as you hinted had probably no greater value or purpose than to keep anyone in the Soviet Union from ever thinking they could cross Joe Stalin. Its amazing how those iron rails look like overcooked spaghetti now.
ReplyDelete