Magadan… What is hidden in this word? Kolyma pops up before my eyes, the harsh climate of the hills, the taiga, the sea. And, of course, prison, camps, zones at every turn. Well, the songs of Mikhail Krug and Vasya Oblomov about Magadan. But what is this northern city really like and how many prisons are there in Magadan?
About the city
Magadan – is the youngest city in the Far East. The distance to Moscow is almost 7 thousand km. The regional center is located in the north-east of Russia, on the shores of the Nagaenva Bay and the Gertner Bay of the Sea of Okhotsk.
The city, except for Magadan itself, includes several villages. These are Dukcha, Snezhny, Snow Valley, Uptar and the village of Sokol, in which the international airport "Magadan" is located.
Communication with the world occurs only by air. Therefore, the airport is called the "Golden Gate of Kolyma". This is true, since there is no railway to Magadan, there is no way to get there by road. The Kolyma highway is often closed: either washed out by rain or covered with snow.
High-speed Internet is always out of order, mail exists more for show. Parcels go for months, or even they may not reach at all. The city is practicallyisolated from the outside world.
Birth of a city
Magadan originates from the distant 1930s of the last century, when mining of natural resources and gold began in this region. In 1939, Magadan was given the status of a city. The development of gold deposits, as well as the construction of the city and the Kolyma highway, was carried out mainly by political prisoners.
One of them was S. P. Korolev, a world famous designer of space rockets. In honor of him in the village. The street is named Falcon. After the Great Patriotic War, captured Japanese and Germans were exiled here, who worked in the mines.
Sunny Magadan
Residents of Magadan, having arrived in the center of the country, face the same situation. Residents of Magadans are asked stupid questions for them. Do you live in yarangas, ride reindeer instead of cars and buses, and do bears walk the streets of the city? Well, or the same questions, only in a different interpretation: do you eat red caviar with large spoons, and gold is lying under your feet, and Magadan, prison and hills are all very close by?
And the indigenous people begin to dispel all the myths. That they live in ordinary houses and apartments, drive cars and buses, do not eat caviar with spoons, mine gold in the mines, do not roll nuggets under their feet. Bears are seen often and regularly, in the suburbs and in the forest. The hills are also nearby, visible from any part of the city every day. But the connection between Magadan and the prison is very doubtful.
A gloomy and dark history stretches for Kolyma, there has never been and never will be another. But the criminals here do not walk around the city,camps and prisons are not at every turn. There are no miles of barbed wire, no guard dogs are heard, and the prisoners have long been forgotten.
Magadan, zone, prison, Kolyma camps
It is generally accepted that Magadan is a city surrounded by prisons, zones, and prisoners can be seen on every corner. A native Magadan who comes to the "mainland" will always be asked the traditional question: "Is Magadan, the prison, the camps tied in a strong knot?" There is nothing of this, everything has sunk into oblivion. Almost all camps in Kolyma were closed by the 1960s.
The reason for this is simple and banal: the expensive maintenance of prisoners in such difficult and hard-to-reach places. And infrastructure support resulted in huge funds. Therefore, it was decided to close all prisons and colonies.
Currently, there is one colony-settlement, one pre-trial detention center, two correctional colonies. The last prison closed in 2006. This is a prison in Magadan, whose name is "Thalaya". It got its name from the village of Talaya, with which the colony was adjacent.
History of "Thaloy"
The general regime correctional labor colony was located far from the city of Magadan. The prison is located three hundred kilometers from him, among the hills and taiga. Three high fences isolated her from the world. The outer fence was connected along the perimeter to the electric current. Such precautions were not accidental. Robbers, rapists, murderers were brought here from all over the country.
The road to the prison was bumpy and vile, even in a KAMAZ it was hard to drive. And if you get on foot and in winter, it is almost impossible. For this reason, any prison became a small city that provided for itself.
Talaya Prison is no exception. It had its own workshops for tailoring and repairing shoes. Cooks, doctors, mechanics, electricians lived on the territory of the colony. It differs only from the city in the absence of women and children and is in complete isolation from the outside world. Just mountains, a fence, barbed wire and time frozen in place.
Accident
In early January 2005, there was an accident in the boiler room that heated the prison. The workers failed to repair the boiler on their own. It was not possible to bring a new pump. The convicts, and there were about 300 of them, were left without heat.
What does it mean to be left without heat in Kolyma? This is a frost of -40-50 degrees, snowdrifts to the waist, and a constant piercing wind. To be in such conditions without any heat is a certain and quick death. The leadership decided to evacuate the convicts to other camps. Everything happened quickly and efficiently.
In the future, they decided not to restore the colony, considering it inappropriate. Gradually, she fell into disrepair. Repair shops, garage, canteen, cells and outbuildings are beyond repair.
Icy hell is now an abandoned colony "Thaw". What prison in Magadan can withstand such harsh conditions? Virtually none. in the middlethe hill is an empty and lifeless village. All the iron was cut out and taken out by local residents, everything that is of even a small value was stolen. Such is the history of the corrective labor colony with the tender name "Thalaya".
So all the myths about prisoners, escorts, criminals walking around Magadan have been debunked. There is nothing there that would remind of past camps. There is only nature of pristine beauty, clean air, the sea with fish teeming in it. And fogs and taiga, it's not in vain that Y. Kukin's song "And I'm going after the fog and the smell of the taiga" is not in vain.
