1
00:00:03,320 --> 00:00:06,567
GULAG.CZ PRESENTS

2
00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:10,121
A DOCUMENTARY FILM

3
00:00:32,427 --> 00:00:36,129
I knew there had once been
a railway line

4
00:00:36,150 --> 00:00:39,450
between the cities of Salekhard
and Igarka in northern Siberia

5
00:00:39,471 --> 00:00:41,780
some 1,000 km in length.

6
00:00:42,098 --> 00:00:47,260
It was built by Gulag prisoners
between 1947 and 1953.

7
00:00:47,723 --> 00:00:51,100
Up to 100,000 prisoners
had worked on it.

8
00:00:51,216 --> 00:00:53,996
So I looked for it on satellite images.

9
00:00:54,121 --> 00:00:58,660
By the Yenisei River, I found a line
running through the taiga,

10
00:00:58,681 --> 00:01:01,161
apparently the remnants
of the railway.

11
00:01:01,182 --> 00:01:01,928
And every 5-10 km along the tracks

12
00:01:01,949 --> 00:01:04,855
ŠTĚPÁN ČERNOUŠEK - FOUNDER OF GULAG.CZ
And every 5-10 km along the tracks

13
00:01:04,876 --> 00:01:07,575
there were clusters of little rectangles.

14
00:01:07,596 --> 00:01:10,482
And I realized they were old labor camps.

15
00:01:10,512 --> 00:01:13,096
I was fascinated by the sheer
number of them

16
00:01:13,117 --> 00:01:15,575
and I started searching the internet

17
00:01:15,596 --> 00:01:18,863
to see what they looked like
or find some info on them.

18
00:01:18,884 --> 00:01:21,205
But I turned up very little.
It kept me awake at nights.

19
00:01:21,226 --> 00:01:23,658
So I decided I'd have to go
and see for myself.

20
00:01:43,447 --> 00:01:47,049
We set off for the sites
of the abandoned old camps.

21
00:01:47,201 --> 00:01:52,221
They were amazingly well-preserved,
even the prisoners' personal items.

22
00:01:52,510 --> 00:01:54,740
Despite the fact that this was no museum.

23
00:02:01,673 --> 00:02:05,291
Not only Soviet citizens
were imprisoned in the Gulag,

24
00:02:05,312 --> 00:02:08,002
but nations from all over the world.

25
00:02:08,604 --> 00:02:12,670
And no one in Europe knows
what those camps looked like.

26
00:02:18,065 --> 00:02:22,963
There is really no museum of Stalinist camps
anywhere in Russia.

27
00:02:22,984 --> 00:02:26,385
And so we decided
to visit the camps again

28
00:02:26,406 --> 00:02:30,885
and this time properly map them
and make a virtual museum

29
00:02:31,113 --> 00:02:33,841
with panoramic photos
and a 3D model of a camp.

30
00:02:33,869 --> 00:02:37,549
So that it could be seen by more
than just the couple of enthusiasts

31
00:02:37,570 --> 00:02:42,602
able to bear the mosquitos,
the Siberian winter,

32
00:02:42,623 --> 00:02:44,420
and living in the taiga.

33
00:02:46,600 --> 00:02:52,720
A JOURNEY TO THE GULAG

34
00:03:11,720 --> 00:03:13,416
210 meters above sea level.

35
00:03:17,674 --> 00:03:21,904
We went in a team in which
each person had a certain role

36
00:03:21,925 --> 00:03:26,705
and each was an expert in something.
Aside from me, there was Pavel Blažek.

37
00:03:26,729 --> 00:03:31,882
He's kind of a technical whizz who knows
what to do in extreme situations.

38
00:03:33,432 --> 00:03:37,884
It's pretty easy to explain my motivation
for going on a trip like this.

39
00:03:37,905 --> 00:03:40,122
PAVEL BLAŽEK - PHOTOGRAPHER
It's an opportunity to check out a place

40
00:03:40,143 --> 00:03:43,658
that almost no one has the chance to see.

41
00:03:45,994 --> 00:03:48,419
David Těthal, a student of geodesy.

42
00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:52,506
He knew exactly how the buildings
would have to be measured.

43
00:03:53,987 --> 00:03:59,340
Firstly, I wanted to see the nature
which is still untouched by mankind.

44
00:03:59,401 --> 00:04:02,072
And also I knew nothing about the Gulag,

45
00:04:02,080 --> 00:04:05,559
DAVID TĚTHAL - GEODESIST
nothing about the prisoners who worked there.

46
00:04:05,580 --> 00:04:07,314
So I found that enticing as well.

47
00:04:08,330 --> 00:04:11,221
Martin Novák.
A man of the wild.

48
00:04:11,242 --> 00:04:15,080
I think he could survive
however extreme the conditions.

49
00:04:15,924 --> 00:04:17,642
MARTIN NOVÁK
WILDERNESS SURVIVAL EXPERT

50
00:04:17,663 --> 00:04:20,470
I hadn't had a vacation in over a year,
I needed to unwind.

51
00:04:26,431 --> 00:04:30,431
From Krasnoyarsk, we took a steamboat
along the Yenisei for three days

52
00:04:30,461 --> 00:04:34,486
to the city of Turukhansk
just under the Arctic Circle.

53
00:04:35,463 --> 00:04:40,263
The prisoners went along the same route
under the decks of cargo boats.

54
00:04:45,033 --> 00:04:48,822
I thought a lot about what it must
have been like for the prisoners

55
00:04:48,843 --> 00:04:54,095
because they had nothing
like the comfort we enjoyed.

56
00:05:16,656 --> 00:05:20,593
TURUKHANSK

57
00:05:45,440 --> 00:05:49,223
We hired a helicopter,
loaded a motorboat on it,

58
00:05:49,239 --> 00:05:53,153
and flew 200 km to a hamlet
called Yanov Stan.

59
00:05:53,286 --> 00:05:55,976
From there, we planned to go 30 km

60
00:05:55,997 --> 00:05:58,887
into the heart of the taiga
to the abandoned camp of Klyuch,

61
00:05:58,908 --> 00:06:01,450
which satellite photos suggested
was the best preserved.

62
00:06:16,828 --> 00:06:20,969
The taiga is like a green carpet
of nature's beauty.

63
00:06:20,990 --> 00:06:25,305
And then there's like an abrupt
scar across it. The railroad.

64
00:06:26,703 --> 00:06:30,170
The railway has no other name
than the "Dead Road".

65
00:06:30,195 --> 00:06:33,469
Stalin died in March of 1953

66
00:06:33,599 --> 00:06:37,156
and within three weeks the construction
of the railway was halted.

67
00:06:37,177 --> 00:06:42,555
Because it was really nothing more
than a pet project of Stalin's.

68
00:06:50,094 --> 00:06:53,047
YANOV STAN
METEOROLOGICAL STATION

69
00:07:06,139 --> 00:07:10,156
We had photo and video cameras,
a panoramic head,

70
00:07:10,177 --> 00:07:13,241
solar panels, and a back-up battery...

71
00:07:13,270 --> 00:07:16,988
By the time we set out
on foot into the taiga

72
00:07:17,009 --> 00:07:20,160
we each had maybe 30 kilos
on our backs.

73
00:07:33,069 --> 00:07:37,288
The taiga is quite an experience.
It's intense.

74
00:07:37,429 --> 00:07:40,162
Constantly whacking
through the birches.

75
00:07:40,198 --> 00:07:42,864
Nothing but birch,
birch, birch, birch.

76
00:07:42,885 --> 00:07:46,241
Kilometers of nothing but birch
and you can't see out of it.

77
00:07:54,077 --> 00:07:57,013
Never in the forests back home

78
00:07:57,034 --> 00:08:01,999
have I ever felt so confined
and lost as I did in the taiga.

79
00:08:10,358 --> 00:08:13,880
Hand me that machete, I'll make something
to hold on to over there.

80
00:08:18,632 --> 00:08:20,717
You OK? Can you stand?

81
00:08:22,618 --> 00:08:24,741
OK, I've got it.

82
00:08:27,656 --> 00:08:30,304
Both machetes are on the other side.
Careful, the map is falling!

83
00:08:30,366 --> 00:08:32,966
-It's OK, I've got it.
-Have you got it?

84
00:08:41,857 --> 00:08:46,220
You'd follow the old railway embankment
and if you came down

85
00:08:46,356 --> 00:08:51,879
you'd immediately lose your bearings
and not know which way you'd come from.

86
00:08:51,989 --> 00:08:58,660
It would be very easy to get off track
and wander for days and starve.

87
00:09:14,013 --> 00:09:16,414
We were most concerned about bears.

88
00:09:16,435 --> 00:09:21,476
Autumn was coming and that's when bears
want to eat all they can and go to sleep.

89
00:09:21,497 --> 00:09:25,684
We had lots of food and they must
have smelled it from a distance.

90
00:09:27,935 --> 00:09:31,507
We didn't walk so many kilometers

91
00:09:31,528 --> 00:09:35,749
but the difficult terrain
wears you out quickly.

92
00:09:35,770 --> 00:09:39,953
And we were glad to be able
to lie down and recuperate,

93
00:09:39,982 --> 00:09:43,577
we were looking forward to the next day
and making it to the camp at Klyuch.

94
00:09:43,598 --> 00:09:46,465
-So, where are we?
-Here somewhere, I think.

95
00:09:47,130 --> 00:09:50,973
-Behind this.
-And where are we going? Point to it.

96
00:09:51,415 --> 00:09:54,020
-Here.
-This beam is completely loose.

97
00:10:19,800 --> 00:10:22,278
Another kilometer.
And a half.

98
00:10:22,685 --> 00:10:25,153
-In a straight line?
-Yeah, so two.

99
00:10:26,005 --> 00:10:30,590
With all our modern technology,
waterproof jackets, warm leather boots,

100
00:10:30,794 --> 00:10:34,544
we really had a hard time
sticking it out at that point.

101
00:10:34,568 --> 00:10:39,739
And this was September,
when the temperatures are not so extreme.

102
00:10:39,750 --> 00:10:45,961
So trying to put ourselves in the shoes
of the prisoners... it's unimaginable.

103
00:10:49,026 --> 00:10:53,869
After two days' walking we reached
the camp named Klyuch

104
00:10:53,890 --> 00:10:58,252
which the satellite photos suggested
was in very good condition.

105
00:10:58,273 --> 00:11:02,791
KLYUCH LABOR CAMP

106
00:11:09,400 --> 00:11:11,348
It just burned down this year.

107
00:11:14,924 --> 00:11:17,391
And it was definitely in good repair.

108
00:11:17,979 --> 00:11:21,528
I was thinking, "Dear God,
how is it possible?"

109
00:11:21,725 --> 00:11:28,010
This camp had stood here for 50-60 years,
beautiful, well preserved,

110
00:11:28,276 --> 00:11:33,565
and a few weeks before we get here

111
00:11:34,420 --> 00:11:37,874
with the aim of documenting it,
it burns to the ground.

112
00:11:38,463 --> 00:11:40,911
Show me that melted glass, Pavel.

113
00:11:43,977 --> 00:11:45,471
Very nice.

114
00:11:46,542 --> 00:11:48,455
And there's barbed
wire over there.

115
00:11:48,476 --> 00:11:51,403
When I saw the remains
of the Klyuch camp

116
00:11:51,424 --> 00:11:55,674
I realized that there really was sense
in what we were doing.

117
00:11:55,695 --> 00:12:00,153
It was important, it was necessary
that these camps be documented.

118
00:12:00,174 --> 00:12:04,300
Because they can very easily disappear.

119
00:12:04,416 --> 00:12:06,690
This is a job for an archeologist now.

120
00:12:06,711 --> 00:12:11,161
The taiga will take the buildings back,
practically nothing will remain of them,

121
00:12:11,182 --> 00:12:14,316
it really will be up to the archeologists.

122
00:12:23,128 --> 00:12:26,525
YANOV STAN

123
00:12:34,057 --> 00:12:35,778
Nice weather...

124
00:12:37,588 --> 00:12:40,917
When we got back to Yanov Stan
it was like being in the Hilton.

125
00:12:40,979 --> 00:12:42,947
We got a fire going,
it was warm,

126
00:12:42,983 --> 00:12:45,700
and most importantly,
we had beds. Hard beds.

127
00:12:45,721 --> 00:12:48,681
So no more backs shaped by local roots.

128
00:12:48,702 --> 00:12:52,486
It really gave us the energy to try
to undertake something else

129
00:12:52,507 --> 00:12:57,220
and to keep trying to get
what we'd come for.

130
00:12:58,883 --> 00:13:03,210
We made the decision to take the boat
200 km down the Turukhan river

131
00:13:03,231 --> 00:13:05,536
back to the city of Turukhansk.

132
00:13:05,608 --> 00:13:09,279
We planned to explore the abandoned camps
along the river,

133
00:13:09,300 --> 00:13:13,093
though they weren't in very good shape
according to the satellite images.

134
00:13:18,508 --> 00:13:20,911
Careful it doesn't float away.

135
00:13:25,772 --> 00:13:29,264
Push it into the water
and it will hook on.

136
00:13:41,502 --> 00:13:46,507
One of the biggest mistakes I made
was when we rented the boat

137
00:13:46,528 --> 00:13:52,993
and I consented to this old
Soviet engine, a Hurricane-30.

138
00:13:58,198 --> 00:14:02,954
"Hurricane" sounded nice enough,
but it was old Soviet technology

139
00:14:02,975 --> 00:14:08,087
and the workers at the weather station
laughed a bit when they saw it

140
00:14:08,108 --> 00:14:12,711
because the Hurricane-30 is famous
for being extraordinary unreliable.

141
00:14:23,264 --> 00:14:28,125
Luckily, the meteorologists
fidgeted with it a little

142
00:14:28,155 --> 00:14:30,834
and the engine finally came to life.

143
00:15:06,067 --> 00:15:10,113
When you consider that you're 200 km
from the nearest settlement,

144
00:15:10,180 --> 00:15:13,444
not a soul in sight, a railroad
that never worked,

145
00:15:13,474 --> 00:15:16,467
and suddenly there's this huge
bridge of reinforced concrete

146
00:15:16,488 --> 00:15:21,190
that has been there for 70 years,
it's kind of a bizarre monument

147
00:15:21,226 --> 00:15:24,222
to the whole, senseless enterprise.

148
00:15:33,379 --> 00:15:36,152
I climbed up on one of the pillars
of the bridge and suddenly noticed

149
00:15:36,173 --> 00:15:39,160
there were shoe-prints
stamped into the cement.

150
00:15:41,293 --> 00:15:43,499
It's a sudden connection.

151
00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:47,528
Someone had stood there,
poured that cement,

152
00:15:47,549 --> 00:15:50,140
frozen, probably died.

153
00:16:22,333 --> 00:16:26,083
You're going through the forest
and suddenly there's a locomotive.

154
00:16:26,104 --> 00:16:27,833
You think to yourself,
"What's that doing here"?

155
00:16:27,854 --> 00:16:31,449
"That thing has no business being here."

156
00:16:32,075 --> 00:16:34,465
It's just so bizarre,
a complete absurdity,

157
00:16:34,486 --> 00:16:40,431
to come across locomotives welded up
so they can't be used.

158
00:16:40,452 --> 00:16:42,289
And there they stand
in the taiga today,

159
00:16:42,310 --> 00:16:45,391
with no one having used them since,
and no one even would.

162
00:17:00,293 --> 00:17:04,533
I've camped outside
in temperatures of -42° C.

163
00:17:04,668 --> 00:17:07,715
And I didn't suffer then
the way I did here in Siberia.

164
00:17:08,168 --> 00:17:16,060
Because when it's -42° it's a dry frost
and it doesn't feel as cold as it is.

165
00:17:16,176 --> 00:17:21,590
But when it's around 0° to -5°,
it's raining, drizzling...

166
00:17:23,553 --> 00:17:26,940
Then it's hard.
It saps the energy out of you.

167
00:17:30,053 --> 00:17:34,126
Now give me the green one, please.

168
00:17:40,759 --> 00:17:42,024
Is it in neutral?

169
00:17:49,331 --> 00:17:54,816
That day, the engine died altogether
and we never got it started again.

170
00:17:55,447 --> 00:17:57,478
One, two...

171
00:18:00,294 --> 00:18:01,685
Three.

172
00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:05,267
And off we go again.

173
00:18:06,018 --> 00:18:10,330
After the engine blew, we tried
using oars for a while

174
00:18:10,838 --> 00:18:16,119
but the oar locks broke, of course.
So it was completely hopeless.

175
00:18:19,283 --> 00:18:20,877
Under the covers...

176
00:18:24,783 --> 00:18:32,040
We had no engine, we'd almost become
prisoners of happenstance, of nature.

177
00:18:32,061 --> 00:18:36,611
We had become entirely powerless
to do anything about the situation

178
00:18:36,632 --> 00:18:40,893
and we were left to the whims
of nature and circumstance.

179
00:18:44,229 --> 00:18:48,604
It smells of gasoline and smoked meat here.

180
00:18:51,905 --> 00:18:54,384
We did some quick calculations
and realized

181
00:18:54,405 --> 00:18:59,431
we would have to spend the rest of
the expedition in the little boat

182
00:18:59,452 --> 00:19:02,549
being carried by the current,
because that would be the only way

183
00:19:02,570 --> 00:19:05,200
to make the flight
we'd already paid for.

184
00:19:07,632 --> 00:19:11,171
During those days, it was clear to me
that this was the end of the expedition.

185
00:19:11,207 --> 00:19:15,340
We would be going home empty handed.
It hadn't worked out.

186
00:19:28,077 --> 00:19:31,975
We were saving time,
so we even cooked in the boat.

187
00:19:32,259 --> 00:19:35,852
I had just taken apart the gas cooker
so it wouldn't stink,

188
00:19:35,892 --> 00:19:38,157
I was tapping it out into the river,

189
00:19:38,586 --> 00:19:41,198
and then, oops... The cooker fell into the river.

190
00:20:06,687 --> 00:20:10,173
We heard a roar in the distance
and didn't know what it was.

191
00:20:10,194 --> 00:20:12,397
But we were sure it wasn't a plane.

192
00:20:12,418 --> 00:20:15,660
The noise got closer and louder.

193
00:20:16,045 --> 00:20:19,092
And from around a bend in the river
a boat appeared.

194
00:20:33,890 --> 00:20:37,764
We made it back to Turukhansk
in two days.

195
00:20:38,155 --> 00:20:40,400
We had only five days left
until our flight.

196
00:20:40,421 --> 00:20:42,421
I knew from a previous expedition

197
00:20:42,442 --> 00:20:45,671
that about 170 km to the north
along the Yenisei

198
00:20:45,692 --> 00:20:49,288
there were camps by the abandoned
settlement of Yermakovo.

199
00:20:49,382 --> 00:20:53,380
And we hoped that at least one
might still be in good condition.

200
00:20:53,429 --> 00:20:57,807
TURUKHANSK

201
00:21:00,632 --> 00:21:08,053
In Turukhansk, the local monks
agreed to take us in their motorboat.

202
00:21:08,084 --> 00:21:11,971
The only catch was that
the weather had to hold.

203
00:21:12,233 --> 00:21:16,229
Because when the wind is strong
and the Yenisei whips up,

204
00:21:16,266 --> 00:21:19,816
you can't take a motorboat on it.

205
00:21:22,981 --> 00:21:28,996
He says for you to move up a bit
so we get the right tilt.

206
00:21:29,349 --> 00:21:31,044
Forward, forward.

207
00:21:38,677 --> 00:21:42,957
The wind was blowing, so the waves
were half a meter to a meter high.

208
00:21:42,982 --> 00:21:46,206
When the waves hit the boat
at that speed,

209
00:21:46,701 --> 00:21:49,786
on those hard seats...
they hit really hard.

210
00:21:49,849 --> 00:21:52,934
The journey took five hours,
so imagine sitting

211
00:21:52,955 --> 00:21:56,752
five hours on a rodeo bull
that's trying to throw you off.

212
00:21:56,794 --> 00:21:59,463
We were huddled up, hibernating,

213
00:21:59,484 --> 00:22:01,926
and hoping it would be
over as soon as possible.

214
00:22:13,958 --> 00:22:14,778
STALIN'S PANTHEON

215
00:22:14,786 --> 00:22:17,132
STALIN'S PANTHEON
We stopped along the way

216
00:22:17,153 --> 00:22:21,262
at one very interesting place
near the small village of Kurejka.

217
00:22:21,283 --> 00:22:24,252
Stalin had been exiled there by the tsar.

218
00:22:24,317 --> 00:22:28,700
And in the 1950s, the Gulag prisoners
erected a huge "pantheon"

219
00:22:28,721 --> 00:22:33,149
around the house in which
he spent his exile.

220
00:22:35,659 --> 00:22:39,393
Building a shrine in the middle of Siberia

221
00:22:39,414 --> 00:22:45,096
where all passing boats had to stop,
everyone on board had to disembark,

222
00:22:45,112 --> 00:22:47,268
everyone had to pay homage...

223
00:22:49,278 --> 00:22:52,347
That's just...
You can't get your head around it.

224
00:23:08,893 --> 00:23:14,255
The shrine was gradually dismantled
under Khrushchev in the 50s,

225
00:23:14,380 --> 00:23:18,528
then the whole thing burned down
sometime in the 80s or 90s,

226
00:23:18,591 --> 00:23:21,445
and then around ten years ago
some businessman

227
00:23:21,466 --> 00:23:24,411
wanted to re-erect a statue of Stalin
and take tourists there.

228
00:23:24,432 --> 00:23:28,060
But local activists managed
to tear it down.

229
00:23:29,012 --> 00:23:32,038
So you kind of realize the difference

230
00:23:32,059 --> 00:23:38,497
between being a prisoner in Siberia
under the tsar and under Stalin.

231
00:23:39,130 --> 00:23:43,137
Under the tsar, the imprisoned Bolsheviks
actually lived quite comfortably.

232
00:23:43,158 --> 00:23:49,075
They had cottages, domestic staff,
they could write what they wanted.

233
00:23:49,174 --> 00:23:57,268
And when Stalin sent hundreds of thousands
to the same place some 40 years later,

234
00:23:57,289 --> 00:24:01,830
that meant hunger, cold, death,

235
00:24:01,851 --> 00:24:06,187
utter hopelessness,
and slave labor.

236
00:24:07,966 --> 00:24:11,801
From the pantheon we followed
the Yenisei to Yermakovo

237
00:24:11,856 --> 00:24:14,997
and from there another few
kilometers through the taiga.

238
00:24:15,028 --> 00:24:17,544
And there, we finally found
what we'd been looking for.

239
00:24:24,513 --> 00:24:27,369
First we came across the doghouses.

240
00:24:27,390 --> 00:24:31,450
Where they bred the guard dogs
they kept at every camp.

241
00:24:31,661 --> 00:24:35,661
It looked as if the dogs had been there
just the day before.

242
00:24:36,183 --> 00:24:38,801
It makes a pretty intense impression.

243
00:24:38,822 --> 00:24:43,169
BARABANIKHA LABOR CAMP

244
00:25:15,021 --> 00:25:18,223
It dawns on you when you get there
that this isn't some museum,

245
00:25:18,251 --> 00:25:22,269
this was a real labor camp
where those people really lived.

246
00:25:22,348 --> 00:25:24,972
They suffered and died there,
and suddenly,

247
00:25:25,215 --> 00:25:28,434
you're struck by the oppressiveness
of the place.

248
00:25:31,427 --> 00:25:32,959
It's like...

249
00:25:33,482 --> 00:25:37,333
It's like something out of
a fantasy or sci-fi novel

250
00:25:37,354 --> 00:25:40,659
where a civilization simply vanishes
from one day to the next

251
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:45,145
and all the articles and features
of everyday life are left behind.

252
00:25:45,166 --> 00:25:47,098
But the people are gone.

253
00:25:53,075 --> 00:25:54,546
There by the wall?

254
00:25:54,857 --> 00:25:56,523
Yes, this one.

255
00:25:56,547 --> 00:25:58,187
-This one?
-Yeah.

256
00:26:05,075 --> 00:26:06,638
5.56.

257
00:26:07,099 --> 00:26:08,740
2.66.

258
00:26:10,286 --> 00:26:11,940
89 cm.

259
00:26:12,114 --> 00:26:16,872
One by one, we started completely
documenting the buildings.

260
00:26:16,911 --> 00:26:20,734
We knew we had little time.
Only three days.

261
00:26:20,755 --> 00:26:25,609
The monks had agreed to come back for us
on the fourth day and get us to the plane.

262
00:26:27,378 --> 00:26:30,367
Every panorama consists of 95 photos

263
00:26:30,388 --> 00:26:32,562
and every single one has to be there

264
00:26:32,583 --> 00:26:38,981
because otherwise you couldn't
stich them together and have 360°.

265
00:26:40,333 --> 00:26:42,765
There was barely
any time to rest.

266
00:26:42,786 --> 00:26:49,020
We knew we really had the last three days
to get the documentation we'd come for.

267
00:26:49,060 --> 00:26:54,490
Now, at the very end of the expedition,
we had reached the place

268
00:26:54,511 --> 00:26:58,004
where we'd thought we would be
at the very beginning.

269
00:26:58,025 --> 00:26:59,579
Look, that's nice.

270
00:27:00,712 --> 00:27:03,493
When, where to, to whom.

271
00:27:03,704 --> 00:27:05,740
It fits together beautifully.

272
00:27:06,868 --> 00:27:09,402
The upper fragment should be here too.

273
00:27:09,469 --> 00:27:12,367
-Then let's keep looking.
-This will fit too.

274
00:27:12,725 --> 00:27:14,740
The pink bit.
That's the inside.

275
00:27:15,062 --> 00:27:17,929
-What part is this from?
-Yeah, like that.

276
00:27:17,950 --> 00:27:20,251
When we went through
the old stove

277
00:27:20,272 --> 00:27:24,196
we found some crumpled, unburnt letters
from the prisoners, or for them.

278
00:27:24,217 --> 00:27:27,517
Lots of personal items,
like, for example,

279
00:27:27,525 --> 00:27:31,820
we found the diary of a prisoner
who mostly took technical notes,

280
00:27:31,841 --> 00:27:35,314
but alongside that he also had
some poems or song lyrics

281
00:27:35,335 --> 00:27:38,871
and also some personal comments
about having just discovered

282
00:27:38,892 --> 00:27:43,355
that a close friend, a woman, had died
while building a railroad in Mongolia.

283
00:27:43,415 --> 00:27:47,836
Finding an artifact like that really was
a very powerful moment

284
00:27:47,857 --> 00:27:52,743
when you really get into the heads
of specific individuals who were there.

285
00:28:00,040 --> 00:28:03,204
When you see the names on their bunks

286
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,298
with the dates of their arrival
and planned release...

287
00:28:06,314 --> 00:28:09,329
The lowest number we saw was eight.

288
00:28:09,478 --> 00:28:11,563
So you realize those people
were there for eight years.

289
00:28:11,584 --> 00:28:15,680
There are less than two months of
fairly good weather in the summer

290
00:28:15,701 --> 00:28:18,485
and the rest is incredible cold.

291
00:28:19,165 --> 00:28:22,071
That really is indescribable.

292
00:28:27,884 --> 00:28:31,084
Solitary confinement was by far
the worst place.

293
00:28:33,470 --> 00:28:37,820
We shut each other in a few times
to see what it might have been like.

294
00:28:37,978 --> 00:28:41,976
And it was awfully unpleasant.
Ten minutes of complete silence

295
00:28:42,343 --> 00:28:45,596
in the closed room in which
there is absolutely nothing

296
00:28:45,624 --> 00:28:47,946
but a small window, 30x40 cm...

297
00:28:48,488 --> 00:28:51,657
That must have broken the spirit
of anyone locked in there.

298
00:28:59,626 --> 00:29:03,438
On our last day, snow fell in the morning.
A proper freeze.

299
00:29:03,459 --> 00:29:07,485
It was getting slippery and harder
to get into the buildings.

300
00:29:07,501 --> 00:29:12,556
The taiga was saying, "That's enough,
I'm taking it back, the winter is coming,"

301
00:29:12,577 --> 00:29:15,700
"and you won't do any more here".

302
00:29:22,618 --> 00:29:25,243
The feeling of going back
with the materials,

303
00:29:25,264 --> 00:29:28,841
of having collected all
the photos and footage,

304
00:29:28,862 --> 00:29:31,974
knowing we had what we needed
to build the virtual museum,

305
00:29:31,995 --> 00:29:36,584
I have to say that was a very nice feeling.

306
00:29:36,605 --> 00:29:40,113
But what we mapped out was merely
a drop in the ocean.

307
00:29:40,113 --> 00:29:44,858
There were up to 30,000 such camps
across the Soviet Union

308
00:29:44,879 --> 00:29:48,112
and some 20 million people
went through them.

309
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:52,540
So I hope our work will help,
at least a little,

310
00:29:52,561 --> 00:29:54,886
to keep their memory alive.

311
00:30:03,824 --> 00:30:07,670
CAST

312
00:30:07,691 --> 00:30:11,175
PRODUCER, CAMERAMAN, STORYWRITER

313
00:30:11,196 --> 00:30:13,698
SCREENWRITER, EDITOR, DIRECTOR

314
00:30:13,707 --> 00:30:16,316
SCRIPT CONSULTANT

315
00:30:16,316 --> 00:30:18,832
ANIMATIONS AND GRAPHICS

316
00:30:18,832 --> 00:30:20,839
INTERVIEW FOOTAGE

317
00:30:20,847 --> 00:30:22,553
SOUND MIX

318
00:30:22,574 --> 00:30:25,865
MUSIC

319
00:30:25,886 --> 00:30:27,636
Music used from Fontána.cz

320
00:30:27,656 --> 00:30:30,229
Archival footage: Tomasz Kizny archive,
the Komi National Museum,

321
00:30:30,250 --> 00:30:34,147
International Memorial in Moscow,
Krasnoyarsk Memorial Society.

322
00:30:34,168 --> 00:30:37,698
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

323
00:30:37,719 --> 00:30:41,933
And to all who have supported Gulag Online
through Hithit and in other ways.

324
00:30:45,336 --> 00:30:47,310
PRODUCED BY GULAG.CZ 2019

325
00:30:47,331 --> 00:30:50,264
Translation and subtitles:
Christian Falvey