Dmitrovlag

Created by order of the OGPU No. 889c of September 14, 1932 . Administratively located in the north of the Moscow region in the city of Dmitrov (in fact - along the entire length of the canal and in other places of construction), it was subordinate to the Gulag . It existed until January 31, 1938 . The number of prisoners reached two hundred thousand people ^[1] . The main architect of the channel was engineer Sergey Zhuk (deputy - Vladimir Zhurin , head of the production department - N. V. Nekrasov, engineer - former baron F. N. Grevenitz ) ^[2] .

Volgostroy and Volgolag were involved in the creation of the artificial Rybinsk Sea . In addition, the labor of prisoners of Dmitrovlag was used in the construction of the Northern Canal (not implemented) and the reconstruction of Yauza (partially implemented), the construction of the Istra Dam , Central Airport named after Frunze in Moscow, Stalin's water pumping station , logging and peat mining.

In September 1933 (?), Prisoners from Leningrad and Central Asia, Temnikovsky and Vishera camps, Sarov ITL and from Siberia began to arrive in Dmitlag in stages. It is sometimes claimed that on January 1, 1933, the total number of prisoners of Dmitlag was 1 million 200 thousand people ^[2] . There is no official confirmation of this figure (see. Section “Number”).

Dmitrov was the only city along the canal, so the administration of Dmitlag was located in the Borisoglebsky monastery . The engineering staff and civilian employees lived mainly in Dmitrov, and camps with prisoners were located along the entire canal route.

At that time, this area of ​​the city was simply called by residents - DmitLag ^[3] . Old-timers of Dmitrov well remember the so-called “town” with streets: Bolshevik, Chekistskaya, Komsomolskaya, Pionerskaya, Engineering (wooden 2-story huts for technical workers), Energy, Shlyuzovaya.

The canal was laid right across the city territory, entire blocks of the historical part of the city and the church located on the canal disappeared. The houses located on the territory of the paved canal were transferred to the former collective farm lands with the formation of the Gorky village . The village was named in honor of the famous writer and activist A.M. Gorky , who repeatedly visited and spoke at various events on the construction of the Volga-Moscow canal.

The population of the city grew very significantly, and there was not enough housing. The population of Dmitrov during the construction of the canal increased by 3 times.

September 1932 began the construction of the Dmitlag mechanical plant on the northern outskirts of Dmitrov, which was engaged in the repair of tractors, automobiles and an excavator. Since 1940 - Dmitrovsky factory of milling machines (DZFS).

April 28, 1937 - the beginning of mass arrests among the construction management and prisoners.

In May, the mass release of some of the prisoners who repaid the term began. In total, about 55 thousand people were released.

August 8, 1937 - the beginning of mass executions of prisoners of Dmitlag ^[5] , including most of the leadership (on charges of organizing a coup by prisoners led by Yagoda) at the Butovo training ground .

At the entrance to Dmitrov from the south on the west bank of the canal on July 17, 1997, a 13-meter steel cross was erected in memory of the dead prisoners at the canal. Installed on the 60th anniversary of construction.

Data on the average monthly number of prisoners before 1936:

• December 1932 - 10,400
• January 1934 - 88 534
• January 1935—192 229

Since 1936, the quarterly prison population of Dmitlag was:

• as of January 1, 1936 - 192,034 people;
• as of April 1 - 175 629 people;
• as of July 1 - 180,390 people;
• as of October 1 - 183,414 people;
• as of January 1, 1937 - 146,920 people;
• as of April 1 - 147 695 people;
• as of July 1 - 74 693 people;
• as of October 1 - 29 660 people;
• as of January 1, 1938 - 16,066 people;
• on February 1 - 6814 people.

Mortality in Dmitlag was:

• in 1933 - 8,873 people (16.1 percent of the payroll);
• in 1934 - 6041 people (3.88 percent);
• in 1935 - 4349 people (2.3 percent);
• in 1936, 2,472 people (1.4 percent);
• in 1937, 1,068 people (0.9 percent);
• in 1938 - 39 people.

In total, from September 14, 1932 to January 31, 1938, 22,842 people died in Dmitlag ^[6] .

According to Barkovsky V.S., the number of prisoners who died in the construction reaches 0.7-1.5 million people. ^[7]

On June 15, 1931, the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution on the construction of a canal that will connect the Volga and Moscow rivers. Initially, the construction of the Moscow-Volga canal was entrusted to the People’s Commissar of the USSR, where on September 1, 1931, the corresponding department began to function; June 1, 1932 the construction was transferred to the OGPU of the USSR. Work on the construction of the Moscow-Volga Canal began at the suggestion of L. M. Kaganovich . ^[8] Speaking at the Dmitrov camp on the progress of work on the canal, the head of Moskavolgostroi, Kogan , emphasized: “Understanding the complexity and importance of the task assigned by the Party to our team, work style, pace, love for its construction, care for it quality and beauty, love for people, the ability to organize and captivate specialists instilled in us the secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich - the inspirer and organizer of this great construction. " In another “welcome letter” from the canal’s builders, it was also noted that “the most ardent fighter for the canal is CC Secretary Lazar Moiseevich Kaganovich, whose specific instructions are still the combat program of our work.” And “Long live the best comrade-in-arms of Comrade Stalin, the enthusiast of Moscow’s reconstruction and the inspirer of the construction of our canal, Comrade Kaganovich!” ^[9] .

After one of the inspections of the construction of the canal, Kaganovich noted: “People were interested in our construction, they were captured by the scope of work, the prospects of our construction, captured our perseverance ... All the more, it’s all clear that the leadership of the NKVD team has a lot of experience people like Kogan , Firin and Beetle , working under the general guidance of Comrade Yagoda ” ^[10] .

ITL Chiefs

• Sorokin A.E., from 25.09.1932;
• Rapoport Ya. D. , from 11/02/1933 to 08/23/1933;
• Radetsky V.T., from 08/23/33 to 09/23/1933;
• Firin S.G. , from 09/23/1933 to 04/28/1937;
• Katznelson Z. B. , from 04.29.1937 to 07.14.1937;
• Prokhorsky F.T., from 02/02/1937 to 08/25/1937;
• Assumption D.V. , from 08.25.1937 to 02.02.1938.

ITL Deputy Heads

• Kalachnikov A.V., until 11.16.1932;
• Evgeniev A.E., until 08.23.1933;
• Balabanov V.A., until 04/10/1935;
• Simanovsky P. Sh., From April 29, 1937 to July 14, 1937;
• Gorshkov A.A., before 02.02.1938.

On October 9, paragraph 1 of Order No. 10 on the Dmitrovsky ITL (DITLAG, DITL) declared the "rules of the internal routine of camp life":

1) Rise 5 hours. 30 min.
2) Breakfast from 5-45 to 6-30 m.
3) Divorce to work from 6-30 to 7 hours. When you go to work in lots of s / c set strictly for 5 people. closed rows.
4) Count the working day from 7 o’clock. up to 17 hours During this time, s / c. s / c. fulfill the labor standards set by him, at the end of the work they line up in orderly rows of 5 in a row and follow this order to the camp.
5) Lunch from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., during the lunch time s / c. s / c. comply with the full order of the queue for obtaining such in the kitchen by no means avoiding hustle, crush, abuse.
6) Evening of the point from 19 to 22 o’clock, which is presented for the work of EHF.
7) Hang up for sleep at 22 hours 5 min. After the lights out, all movement in the z / c camp is suspended. s / c with the exception of the exit for the administration of natural necessities. З / к.з / к should always be undressed and sleep without allowing negotiations with neighbors. Outerwear should be neatly folded.
The head of the campsite to determine the restricted area of ​​walking z / k. s / c., which forbid especially at night; at the same time explain to all z / c. s / c. that with the appearance at night s / c. s / c. on the line of fire beyond the restricted area will be seen as an attempt to escape, and therefore sentries standing at the posts will use weapons without warning.
8) Making bonfires after lights out is not allowed.

Thousands of dirty exhausted people floundered at the bottom of the pit, waist-deep in mud. And it was already October, November, there were terrible cold! And the main thing that I remember: the prisoners were exhausted extremely and always hungry ...

We look: one or another prisoner is falling into the mud. It was they who were dying of weakness: the limit of strength was advancing. The dead were put on trolleys - "grabbers" and taken away ....

Closer to the night, so that there were no random witnesses ... whole caravans of "grabbers" stretched from the canal with corpses dressed in tattered underwear. Horses were driven by a special funeral team . Pits, long and deep, were dug in the grove in advance in the afternoon. People were thrown into the burial grounds, horrible, one on top of the other, like cattle. Only one caravan will leave - another comes for him. And again they dump people into the pits ^[11] .

According to documentary data, “Almost at every waterworks in the canal, where large-scale works were carried out, skeletons in bulk occur periodically, which immediately makes it possible to distinguish these burials from old abandoned cemeteries” ^[12] .

The construction of the channel. Moscow was widely used by Soviet propaganda. Until the end of the 1950s, a one-story club “Dmitlaga” (now a recreation center “Sovremennik”) stood on the site of the House of Culture of the Dmitrov Excavator Plant , on Bolshevik Street. In 1933, it was brought in disassembled form after the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal was completed . The club held festive celebrations and meetings of the foremost DmitLag. Here, in August 1934, Maxim Gorky spoke at the meeting of the forefront of the construction of the Volga-Moscow canal. Nearby is the beautiful building of the Dmitrovsky electric grids of the Moscow Canal Control, which was built during the laying of the canal ^[13] .

In Dmitlag, up to ten newspapers and magazines were published simultaneously, including in the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR, a library fund and its own film studio functioned, there were sports and educational sections and units, as well as its own brass bands and theater. Construction teams engaged in non-mechanized heavy physical work and performing scheduled tasks were provided with a five-day rest in February - April 1935, and the fight against parasites (lice and nits) was completely official. ^[14]

The author of the book “True Gulag from the first circle” to. n Mikhail Morukov (without reference to historical documents) writes:

But do those who compose horror stories about the Gulag know that in 1935 and 1936 prisoners of the Dmitrov camp who built the Moscow-Volga canal participated in physical culture parades on Red Square? Imagine, on the rostrum of the Mausoleum, Stalin and other leaders of the country, and “camps” demonstrate their sports achievements before them ... By the way, newspapers reported, including Pravda, about their participation in the parades.

- The truth about the Gulag. About labor "reforging"

Other propaganda materials speak for themselves, for example:

COME IN 1935. On January 14, Order No. 39 declared the composition of the sections of the Dynamo camp society: rifle, ski, speed skating, hockey, auto section, horseback, gymnastic, “defense and attack” (wrestling), hunting, chess and checkers, medical control, campaign propaganda sector.

- N. Petrov, “History of the GULAG-2”

• Volga, Volga
• Eiduk, Alexander Vladimirovich
• Purgin, Valentin Petrovich
• Baklovlag
• Eastern water canal
• Deep excavation
• ITL and Construction of the Stalin pump station
• Gulag History Museum

• Fedorov N. A. Did the minister have a car? .. Essays on the builders of the Moscow-Volga Canal. - Dmitrov: SPAS, 1997 .-- 224 p. - 4,000 copies.
• Timofev V.M. Drummer-canalarmarm // Melitopol local history magazine, 2017, No. 9, p. 9-11

• DMITROVSKY ITL (Dmitlag)
• DMITLAG (From the history of the construction of the Moscow-Volga Canal)
• Petrov N. History of the Gulag-2 (Dmitrovlag)
• Ryzhkova N. Music from the Gulag ("Reforging" Music Library)
• Moscow Canal (Volga-Moscow Canal) - Organization of work (inaccessible link)
• Forward to the depths of human happiness. What remains of Dmitlag on the 80th anniversary of its creation , Novaya Gazeta, 09/18/2012.
• Ozerova N. Dmitlag: 128 kilometers of canal, 22,842 corpses. 80 years later ... - OUR HISTORY | VTR, 2012-10-23
• Sign "Drummer of the construction of the Moscow-Volga Canal"
• Kolomna prisoners