Nazino affair, Prison labor camp on Nazino Island, Russia.
The Nazino affair refers to a labour camp established in 1933 on a small, uninhabited river island in the Ob, roughly 500 miles north of Tomsk. The island at that time had no buildings, tools, or supplies for the thousands of people who arrived there.
In early May 1933, authorities brought groups of deportees from Moscow and other cities here as part of a plan to populate remote areas. Most people died within weeks of arrival.
Declassified documents from 1988 revealed the systematic mistreatment of prisoners, leading to investigations by the Memorial human rights organization.
The site is located in a remote region and is not accessible to visitors today. Travel to the area is difficult and exploring the surroundings requires official permissions.
A Soviet official who visited the island later wrote a detailed report on conditions that remained classified for decades. The report only became public in the late 1980s.
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