Railroad of Death

Salekhard–Igarka Railway, referred to variously as 501 Railroad or Railroad of Death, was a project of the Soviet Gulag system that took place from 1949 to 1953. It was part of a grand design of Joseph Stalin to span a railroad across northern Siberia to reach the Soviet Union's easternmost territories. The connection from Igarka to Salekhard measured 806 miles (1,297 km) in length. The project was built mostly with prisoner labor, particularly that of political prisoners, and thousands perished.

"The might of Russia will grow with Siberia", Mikhaylo Lomonosov said about riches of our region. But roads are necessary for mastering such big territory. Rivers served as roads for first explorers. It was possible to get to the river Ob and the river Yenisey from Ural slopes, along the system of river floods. People came here for different fur, pelts and walrus bone. But short northern summer restricted drifting along rivers and the North Sea Route. 

In the end of the XIX century and in the beginning of the XX century the projects were denied for want of means and manpower. The drastic development of camp system under Stalin enabled to realize the colonization of remote areas and projects within industrialization campaign.

It was hard to build the road. Big amount of sand was swallowed by swamps, unexpected floods washed and ruined the ready road. Only complete persistence of workers could help to move the building forward. To stimulate the active work of convicts, the chief of the building the colonel V.A.Barabanov input the system of reckoning: for one who carries out the day norm on 115% - to count it as for two days, on 125% - as for three days. Some convicts owing to such system could decrease the time of their imprisonment on 1,5-2 years. Of course, hard work in severe conditions was not possible to do for all people, some of them fell ill and died. The common mischief for everybody was mosquitoes, midges, horseflies and other bloodsucking insects. In summer there was no rescue from it. There were cases of suicide of sentries even. But constantly appearing technical problems for leaders of the building were worse than mosquitoes. After war there was not enough amount of rails. They had to bring ruined remains of rails from battlefront railroads. They were cut in special shops to one-meter pieces and welded to ten-meters rails.

1950 - building the road was continued in growing tempos. Reports about regular progress went to Moscow, the bridge over the river Nadym was built, trains started moving to the west…But as the final day of the building was coming closer, more obvious became the fact that it was not so necessary: there was nothing and nobody to transport along these desert Polar lands. Probably Stalin himself understood untimely character of building, which had been started by his initiative. Starting with 1952 the amount of work on the road Salekhard-Igarka was gradually decreased. People, equipment and materials were sent to other objects, more necessary for the country.

In the following links you can find further information about Stalin's dead railway:

"The Dead road": an overview about the project.

English Russia: photo gallery.