Vishera labor camp

In 1930, the department of Vizhaiha was separated from ELEPHANT and transformed into an independent camp - Vishersky Special Purpose Camp (VISHLON), whose head was I. G. Filippov who had arrived from Moscow.

Despite the fact that VISHLON was called a camp, it was a whole system of camps, which included, in addition to two large ones, on Vishera and in Berezniki , a multitude of smaller ones, which were called business trips.

The main objects of the Vishersky camp were the construction of a pulp and paper mill (the town of Krasnovishersk grew around it) and the harvesting of wood along the Vishera River both for the needs of construction and for providing the combine with wood for paper production.

E. P. Berzin was appointed the head of the construction of the Vishersky chemical plants, by which construction was meant not only on the Vishera River, but also on the Kama .

In the camp near the town of Usolye, Verkhne-Kamsky District, Baptist missionary Peter Wins was serving his sentence. Subsequently, his son George recalled from the words of his father: “There were no railways to the north of Solikamsk, and the whole stage was driven on foot by another 300 kilometers along the taiga roads. Among the prisoners were patients who were more hardy helped to walk. Many did not stand the hard way and died on the road. After his release, his father told me that in the Urals he spent the whole winter on heavy earthworks on the construction of the railway. The prisoners manually plowed up the ground, hard as a rock, with a crowbar and shovels, and drove it in wheelbarrows. The rate was large, 6-8 cubic meters of soil per shift per person, and to perform it, the prisoners worked from early morning until late evening. And after work they were driven for several kilometers to the camp. Feet were always wet. Often, as soon as the prisoners had time to warm up and fall asleep, they were raised in the middle of the night to clear the snow from the camp area. In the Urals in winter there are big snowfalls: from October to May almost every day it snows, drifts reach three to four meters. At night, for several hours, prisoners shoveled the area from the snow with shovels, and at six in the morning, getting up and back to work in the forest. After a sleepless night, the prisoner was physically unable to comply with the norms, and for this the ration of bread was reduced, less porridge and soup were given. Many were dying of hunger, fatigue, and constant lack of sleep. The father remained alive after the time in the Urals only by the grace of God ” ^[1] .

• S. Krivenko. Vishersky ITL (Neopr.) . International Memorial Society. The date of circulation is July 2, 2012. Archived August 7, 2012.

• Vince G.P. - 2. - St. Petersburg: The Bible for All, 1997. - 308 p.