The Soviet Union's Uranium Gulags

The Soviet Union's Uranium Gulags

This article relates to Oblivion

In Oblivion, the unnamed narrator travels to the abandoned uranimum mines on the outer edges of the Siberian taiga to discover the truth about Grandfather II, a family friend who played an important role in his upbringing.

In the race for the atomic bomb in the lead up to World War II, the Allies had effectively secured most of the world uranium ore deposits under their power. The Russians had to come up with a plan to exploit what they could of their own resources. Scattered uranium deposits had been found in remote and inaccessible locations, including Siberia and parts of Tajikistan. The Soviet Union, which at the time had sovereign control over the central Asian country, built their first uranium mine there under government directive but it was soon discovered that the amount of uranium required to manufacture a weapon was too large. The director of all the atomic projects had demanded 200 tonnes (!) of uranium to kickstart things, and separation and enrichment of pure uranium from veins of ore was a laborious process at best. How to enroll the thousands of workers who would be needed to mine the ore and transport to central enrichment facilities? The Soviet Gulag, the prison system, was pressed into service.

Uranium mines were pockmarked all over the inhospitable regions of the Soviet Union with one of the more notorious being in the Irutsk region in eastern Siberia, which came to be known as the Marble Canyon. The perilous crags and extreme working conditions here were mirrored across similar mines, including ones in Stalin's so-called "Coastal Camp" where "especially dangerous" citizens, essentially anybody voicing dissent, were sent to serve. (Instead of the usual numbers assigned to the many camps, these were given picturesque names such as "Mountain Camp" and "Oak Grove Camp."

In the documentary, The Nuclear Gulag, an inmate described thousands of deaths from radiation poisoning (workers wore no protective gear); the biting cold; and the limited rations of food, which was four slices of bread daily along with mushy vegetables. The inmate described a horrific system where, for instance, supervisors would bash inmates' skulls (to prevent them from feigning death) if they got out of line, and then bury them in mine shafts.

A New Yorker article about the Russian gulag, written in travelogue style by Ian Frazier, is worth reading. Also, there are some stark images of the uranium mines here.

It is estimated that from 1936 to 1953, as many as 15 million people - peasants, dissidents, ethnic minorities - were swept into work camps, although it is unclear exactly how many of these were deployed in the uranium mines scattered across the vast Russian plains.

Remains of the Butugychag's Tin Mine, courtesy of Hardscarf
Door to the Butugychag's Tin Mine (note that the metal bar locks it from the outside), courtesy of Oxonhutch

Filed under Places, Cultures & Identities

This article relates to Oblivion. It first ran in the January 20, 2016 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.