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What is the SIBULON?

SIBULON means "Siberian camp administration for special purposes", in other words "Administration of Siberian camps for special purposes". Thus, SIBLON means "Siberian camps for special purposes". In colloquial language persons imprisoned in these camps were called "Sibulontsy", analogously to the BAMLag prisoners (BAM = Baikal-Amur municipal railway track), colloquially called "Bamovtsy".

SIBULON arose in 1929, before the communists hit the idea to rename their concentration camps into ITL (= labour reform camps or corrective labour camps). In 1935 SIBLON was given the name Siblag. In the beginning the camp administration was situated in Novosibirsk, was moved to Mariinsk in 1933, back to Novosibirsk in 1935, again to Mariinsk in 1937, and once again to Novosibirsk in 1939. In 1943 the Siblag administration was finally moved to Mariinsk (today's Kemerovo region).

SIBLON / Siblag "spread its owl's wings" from the River Irtysh to the West, from the River Yennisey to the East, but beside there was a small stripe along the Transsibirian railway track, from Novosibirsk up to Mariinsk and a little further to the East (including the stations of Taiga, Yurga, Yaya, Suslovo and many others).

Within the boundaries of our region were situated the Sibulon camp zones (camp points), on the left bank of the Yenissey, in the surrounding area of Yartsevo (Krivlyak, Fomka, ?) and also on the left tributary of the Yenissey, on the river Kas (Shertshanka or Sertshanka, resp.). This possibly was a camp sector, or even two. At that time these camps were called "Turukhansk camps", because Yartsevo belonged to the Turukhansk district (today it is situated in the Yenisseysk district).

It would be more correct to call these camps Yartsevsk camps.

They were timber industry (wood-cutting) zones, obviously in the order of 500-1000 prisoners. It seems that there were not more than ten of these zones. But according to archive documents they had road construction in this part of the SIBLON / Siblag, as well.

The Yartsevsk camps were ruled in a "patriarchal" manner. In the summer prisoners who "had done something wrong" were "exposed to the gnats", that is they were tight to trees and remained there until gnats and flies had completely sucked out their blood.

The camps were closed approximately in 1940. A few prisoners who had survived (about 200) were then taken away to Yenisseysk.

However, in the mid-forties new timber industry (wood-cutting) camps appeared in these places and particularly on the river Kass (Gorodok and others).

There exist information that in those camps the former Soviet custom of "exposing prisoners to the gnats" was revived. We do not know, whether these "second Yartsevsk camps" belonged to the Siblag, possibly to the "Stroika 503" (Yenissey railroad camp), or wether these zones were under the subordination of local (district) administration.

Within the boundaries of our region, except for the Yartsevsk ones, nothing is known to us about any further SIBULON camps.

Maybe the Achinsk agricultural colony or the camps at Kemchug, Badaloshnaya and other stations, belonged to the SIBLON / Siblag, but documented evidence about where these zones belonged to, is not with us. 


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