Kolyma: Land of Gold and Gulags

The place I am describing is one of the Easternmost regions of Russia and was almost entirely uninhabited until the start of the 20th Century, when prospectors first found precious metal. In any other place, or at any other time, it could have become a land of plenty and opportunity; instead, it became a sprawling region of despair and meaningless death, home to hundreds of thousands of slaves, forced to toil in labour camps.
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Credits:
Host - Simon Whistler
Author - Arnaldo Teodorani
Producer - Jennifer Da Silva
Executive Producer - Shell Harris
Business inquiries to [e-mail]
Source/Further reading:
What Shalamov saw and learned in Kolyma: shalamov.ru/en/library/34/1.html
www.gulag.eu
gulaghistory.org/nps/onlineexh...
www.rbth.com/multimedia/2015/...
www.rbth.com/history/330455-r...
www.rbth.com/history/326157-k...
www.nps.gov/malu/learn/news/u...
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...
www.theparisreview.org/blog/2...
shalamov.ru/en/biography/

[@geographicstravel]

Have you checked out my latest channel Business Blaze? It's interesting business stories with a dose of ridiculousness thrown in. Check it out here: kzbin.info/door/YY5GWf7MHFJ6DZeHreoXgw

[@LostCause36]

You probably won’t see this comment, but THANK YOU for educating us on these horrible periods of History. We don’t get it in schools, and even though horrible and inexplicable, it should be made well known. Those who don’t know the past are doomed to repeat it. I absolutely love your content and just became an avid subscriber.

[@jobrien380]

333

[@kraftmayo]

I'm catching up on all your videos hahaha love the content brother. Be cool if Bald and Bankrupt could go to places you desire. Investigate and collaborate. He was just in Siberia

[@Mongelt]

I'm Russian and know quite a lot about Gulag, after all, some members of my family were there. You've done a great job, thanks! That's not only a dark page in Russian history but also in the history of mankind

[@mariobastidas3102]

Definitely a dark page of our human history! I do believe Stalin was worse than Hitler. It amazing how cruel and evil people can get for power/money.

[@nismo4x4n]

@@mariobastidas3102 Interestingly Stalin didn't really care about money or power. He lived in a simple home and didn't have any expensive trappings. He just ruled with an iron fist in what he thought the union required to secede at any cost...

[@sverre4311]

@@nismo4x4n the fact is that no one cares

[@nismo4x4n]

@@sverre4311 I'm more getting at he didn't need to worry about power or wealth to do such evil things. He just did them of his own volition.

[@tooley6969]

I'm sorry for your families trials and know my admiration goes to their indomitable spirit and deep dedication to making a brighter way for you. Well at least I hope... are you typing from a gulag?

[@angrypossumsx1259]

A mate of mine’s dad grew up in Odessa, survived the Holodomor , fought bravely against the Nazis, was captured, survived appalling conditions as a “Russian” POW, was liberated and on hearing about Stalin’s free Club Gulag holidays decided that the west is the best. Even after changing his name and moving half way across the world he never felt safe from the KGB until the wall came down .

[@TheBenchPressMan]

Your human story is compelling, yet we still have those in this comment section apologising for a system that killed millions.

[@DrCruel]

Nazis were amateurs compared to the Left fascist Bolos. Marxists were worse than the Nazis and got away with it.

[@Twisted_utopia]

Amazing

[@jensalstrup8060]

I had the privilege to interview a surviving Russian POW who did go back to the USSR, and then was sent to the GULAG (Norilsk). He said, that of the two type of camps, he preferred the German ones. Well, that depends on many things, for example weather or not you were a Jew, but still food for thought! Your father's mate made a good choice and he was lucky that he was not handed over by force to "Uncle Joe", as the vast majority of the Soviet POWs were.

[@DrCruel]

@@jensalstrup8060 I had a similar experience, but with a locksmith who had been a POW of the Germans only. He'd been commandeered into service as a mechanic, fixing vehicles for the Wehrmacht. After the war he was supposed to be returned to the Bolshevik fascists, but the Germans liked him and forged him papers so he could masquerade as a German national instead. He later immigrated to the US. To his dying day he claimed that Eisenhower was a communist.

[@texasdeeslinglead2401]

I struggle to imagine being a soldier fighting hell in WWII, then coming home and being arrested and sent to the next level of hell .

[@gryn1s]

@@alanywalany6460 it did, and was well documented in countless memoir and history books by various russian and non russian authors.

[@angrypossumsx1259]

Alany Walany Are you also a flat earther or just another tiresome troll?

[@mkoschier]

Alany Walany Anne Appelbaum has a chapter that covers the Plennies ending up in the Gulag in her book

[@kurtvanduran7725]

Alany Walany the burden of proof is on you for saying it didn't happen, explain yourself.

[@wattsnottaken1]

texasdee slinglead The movie “The Way Back” paints a good picture of this kind of hell.

[@eksiarvamus]

My great grandfather was deported from Estonia to Kolyma, 6000 km away. He worked a few years in gold mines, until developing lung cancer. He worked for a few more years at easier jobs, but died just a year before his release. My grandfather has no memories of his father. The rest of the family was deported to Central Siberia a few years after him, but they returned after Stalin's death. The children were 8 when deported in a cattle wagon.

[@SimonVanliew26]

Some gaps in your story bud

[@eksiarvamus]

@@SimonVanliew26 Like demographic gaps in our country's history or what?

[@badtexasbill5261]

God bless. Prayers from Texas.

[@roland3042]

Same thing happened to one of my family members. He was sent to a gulag when he was helping people escape from Estonia. He almost died and just barely managed to live. After he was set free from the gulag he wasn't allowed to return home, so he stayed in Ukraine until Estonia regained its independence.

[@eksiarvamus]

@@adomasak2325 Died a year before his promised release date.

[@1973Washu]

The Soviet union was one of the largest slave owning countries in human history, so much for being a worker's paradise.

[@FGS-yk3vc]

"Paradise" only in the way that everyone is naked, barefoot, and you're punished for stealing an apple

[@juhotuho10]

@@FGS-yk3vc you will be sent to the gulag for being alleged of stealing an apple

[@angrypossumsx1259]

juhotuho10 And then the cop who arrested you will be denounced, purged and get the same.

[@mkoschier]

rkb100100 thin air really thin air can you back it up, not that I defend the reds the disproportional allocation of wealth human rights etc... was the reason for the revolution. The fact that the reds made a nightmare out of it does not change that fact

[@badtexasbill5261]

@@mkoschier the revolution did exactly what they intended it to do. The millions of useful, uneducated idiots helped facilitate their own demise. The scum reds hated Russian people, Christ's Church, and like children blamed their failures on everyone and everything outside of their own ineptitude. Death to commies.

[@HardRockMark]

I once did a college research project on the Kolyma gulag labor camp. While doing it I came across an article about a man who did a twenty year sentence there and survived it. The thing that kept him alive through it? The guards made sure he was well taken care of because he had a skill that no one else in the whole camp had. He knew how to grow cabbage in the snow there.

[@iansteel1447]

This should be taught in schools. Why is'nt it?

[@DeandreSteven]

Leftists controll the education system.

[@ducusoare]

At what age exactly do you tell humans that we are at any given moment a couple of weeks away from turning into murder-rapists? 12? 15?

[@DeandreSteven]

@@ducusoare my father was conscripted to fight the guatemalan communist guerillas hiding in the mountains at 16-17 , that seems about right. Thats the age where young men start to care about their future.

[@chriswilson1098]

Because lefitists have control of the American education system now.

[@FRDOMFGTHR]

Because of the KGB commie subversion of the United States academia and media

[@spineshivers]

What amazes me is that after almost half an hour of this man explaining the terrors of the Gulag system (I'm from Eastern Europe too, check Google for the Pitesti experiment from my home country), there are still morons in the comment section who actually draw comparisons to American prisons. It's offensive as hell.

[@StaticImage]

Maybe it'll make you feel better to know that people are also using this as an opportunity to say the holocaust was fake. The comment section in this video is almost entirely offensive.

[@StaticImage]

Another thing- The comparison they're making is not based on the horrors, but on the numbers. Which is fair, because in this video, the fact is made that there were more prisoners in the USSR than anywhere on earth at the time, and in the USA, we currently have the highest population of prisoners per capita. It kind of seems like you're just looking for a reason to be mad about something involving America, especially since this comment section is disgustingly rife with awful, vile, evil, disgusting and nauseating lies and propaganda meant to fit ideology based around fascism and hate.

[@torivinson6285]

Have you been to an American prison?

[@morgellon9449]

What do you know about American prisons? Have you ever heard of the Santa Fe Prison Riot of 1980? America's prison industry is designed to cultivate crime to make a show of justifying more tax funding for more prisons and more police and materiel, etc. The American gulag system is just warmer, and the Soviets didn't have the advantage of being accepted as a capitalist phenomenon like in America's "private" prisons, er, I mean gulags. Offended yet, moron?

[@nickjohnson410]

Yeah, but do they force you the eat bologna and cheese sandwiches for lunch in gulags?

[@dsnodgrass4843]

I've heard in places that the Kolyma mines also yielded uranium for the Soviet nuclear reactors and weaponry, too. And zeks died in awful ways mining that.

[@dandonuffin2862]

The average life span for Zeks working the unanium mines was 3 weeks. Many, many, many more than a mere 3 million died; probably closer to 30 or 40 million. The '3' million number seems dangerously, amusingly arbitrary and propagandistic, rather like the legendary / mythical '6 million'.

[@Patrick_3751]

@@dandonuffin2862 Where in the video was the number 3 million mentioned?

[@StaticImage]

@@dandonuffin2862 Wow, you had to find a way to rope that in, didn't you?

[@StaticImage]

@@Patrick_3751 It doesn't. He's just trying to push anti-semetic nonsense by denying the holocaust happened by using the numbers associated with Kolyma to his ideology. Because apparently there can not be more than one evil or more than one tragedy.

[@BothHands1]

StaticImage Wait, i’m confused. If he's implying more people died of kolyma than documented, then might he not also be implying that the number of deaths due to the holocaust are substantially higher than documented? at least that was my interpretation of his comment. i might be wrong though. i'll wait for clarification before i like or dislike though.

[@upintheairstudio]

Yo Simon do a video on Mount Yamantau: Russias Area 51.

[@donaldmccombs5566]

Yes

[@slimfitholsters]

My family left Ukraine in 1913 took them 5 years to get to America. When they got to the US my grandfather ran into a friend from the village and asked why when he sent letters to his village no one replied. He said the communist came into the village and murdered everyone those who survived they where sent to a gulag.

[@georgeorwell2922]

Well described, excellent video. Everyone should read "Gulag Archipelago" by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Stalin was pure Evil, rot in hell !!!

[@AK-74K]

The book quoted in the end of the video by Varlam Shalamov is much better than 'Gulag Archipelago' - much more raw and heavy. Shalamov was an incredible writer

[@budavargas]

Took me like a year to read it. It worth every page

[@goodday4221]

not merely Stalin...any book written by the survivors communism will not paint communists in a flattering shade. before reading that series, the hatred of generations passed for the communist party was just a meme to me. now i understand

[@DerDop]

pantha rhei, vasili grossman, fate and destiny, the same author

[@masterchiefin445]

George Orwell best book I ever read can’t find the rest of the book to save my life!

[@Artur_M.]

The name Kolyma alone sends shivers down my spine. I can tell this is going to be an interesting episode... It's good that you are doing an episode about it because it doesn't seem like it's a well-known topic in the "West".

[@satanspooge]

I just knew gulag = Russia

[@mkoschier]

Nathan Guenther that’s like saying Germany is Auschwitz-Birkenau both statements are Nonsens apart from the fact that at that time the state was the UdSSR. Russia as state does not exist

[@briandonovan1584]

This is a terrific presentation, Simon. I have read some about Kolyma and half way through "The Gulag Archipelago," -75 hour audiobook- If you want to understand the rot and evil of the Soviet Union consider reading this book. Stalin and Lenin killed more people than Hitler.

[@NechaevDmitry]

Brian, just be aware the author made up plenty in the book. He was making up stories and over exaggerated things, which at the peak of anti-soviet propaganda was paying good $$$. Not defending the soviets though, there were tough times for people there.

[@shaunlenton8865]

Well I know what I will be doing for the next 3+ days....... Lol

[@briandonovan1584]

@@NechaevDmitry You are a incorrect.

[@dandonuffin2862]

@@NechaevDmitry Any relation to THE 'Nechaev' ?

[@dandonuffin2862]

Brian; I have read the 'book' [all 3 volumes]. It will change your life.

[@ljrcantread]

Loving Geographics SO MUCH. Especially the videos you've made about the Soviet Union. I'd love to see more videos on the Central Asian states under the Soviet Union because I feel like it's a really under-represented topic in videos like these! Thanks for the amazing content as always.

[@dats3]

@Ben Siener Islam is just like any other religion or supernatural belief: It's silly. Fundamentalist Islam is just as dangerous as fundamentalist Christianity or Judaism. Like religion, political ideological fundamentalism is dangerous too. When you're not allowed to criticize a belief or ideology you're part of a fundamentalist belief system. Fundamentalism is the real enemy.

[@arnoldthomsen6571]

@@dats3 I challange you to find a fundamentalist Jainist who has done anyone much harm.

[@augustvalek]

Sometimes I forget how massive and cold Russia is, absolutely terrifying

[@katieandkevinsears7724]

My wife's great grandfather was killed during collectivization. When her grandfather had the chance to go with the Nazis during the war, he took it and later moved to the USA. Stalin really was one of the worst men to ever live.

[@FGS-yk3vc]

That's a very interesting family history

[@calinculianu]

Stalin made Hitler look like a boy scout.

[@alanywalany6460]

So he collaborated with the fascist invaders who were going to exterminate the Slavs He deserved to die a painful death

[@emelgiefro]

@@alanywalany6460 no? The things communism did to ukraine is horrible. When germans marched to ukraine they were greeted as liberators

[@rudolfhudson977]

@@alanywalany6460 i hope youre joking. Those who defend communism in the 21st century i always assume are just naive to history and ignorant of truth. You on the other hand, after having watched this video have no excuse. Anyone that says "this wasnt real communism" only means to say, if i was the dictator i would usher in the eutopia. You think yourself to be of such divine virtue you would know who to kill and who to save. Read a book you stupid fool. Or dont, its clear that even after truth reveals itself to you youd rather remain floating oblivious in your own vanity.

[@robertweikel5796]

Shalamov's Koylma Tales is insanely depressing and ultimately inspirational. You should do a biographics on him

[@taxiuniversum]

Excellent video. Having lived at times when the Soviet Union still existed, I keep being saddened by the fact that from an initially benevolent thought (helping the forgotten, and spat-upon working class) came one of the most disgusting, horrifying and detestable regimes in all of the world‘s history. With one of the most appalling property’s of it being it‘s mind blowing hypocrisy. 🤮!

[@tiensmey1]

Well done ! I read somewhere that : "Evil is the drive to control, dominate and consume. The condition comes from tunnel vision so narrow as to include only the person and his desires." Over and over in the history of the world we see evil men succeeding because good people do nothing, or do too little too late. Germany lost the war, so the world was made aware of the atrocities and they reacted fiercely and immediately. Justice was seen to be done. The USSR was on the winning side, and none of the other countries was prepared to raise too much stink about the atrocities committed there, so everybody looked the other way, and justice was, sadly, never seen to be done.

[@thedepartmentofredundancyd5160]

Invading the USSR broke the back of the legendary German 8th army. World leaders couldn't run a back-to-back war with USSR knowing (a) how well armed USSR had become and (b) how little regard Stalin had for the lives of his own citizens & troops. USSR had momentum (how quickly Eastern Europe was occupied), the rest of the world was exhausted.

[@Lobos222]

@@thedepartmentofredundancyd5160 Soviet had about 500 000 troops more than the post ww2 West, excluding German soldiers at the time. Most of Soviet Unions materials to run their war machine came from USA. In short, the US could have beaten the Soviets. It wasnt a one sided thing just because ww2 movies and such have made it seem like Russia had endless troop numbers. For example when the German Operation Barbarossa started. The German soldiers outnumbered the Russians by close to 1 million troops.

[@arnoldthomsen6571]

@@Lobos222 They should have just carpet nuked russia instead of being so weak. They had the chance and watched it slip through their grasp.

[@connorlightfoot4290]

Simon Holdomor was an intentional genocide through hunger used by Stalin to russify the region of Ukraine that particular mass famine wasn't even an accident. Maybe do a video on it, its a truly horrific and largely forgotten piece of history.

[@frogchip6484]

Connor Lightfoot the collectivisation was expected to increase food production, it obviously did the exact opposite. I can imagine Stalin’s personal reason for collectivisation is what you suggest but there were probably many who didn’t realise what would happen through this collectivisation

[@ClannCholmain]

@FrogChip, the food was increasingly deliberately exported to capitalist countries, same thing happened in Ireland during the great famine there. That’s capitalism for you.

[@tsartomato]

>>intentional

[@tsartomato]

@spudnic88 you would call anyone a putin supporter who isn't a part of your conspiracy theory

[@AK-74K]

That's not quite true. Holodomor was a result of forced farm collectivisation program talked about in this video. Ukraine had a much higher proportion of farmland versus other republics in the USSR, so Ukrainians suffered disproportionately as a result.

[@noproblem2big337]

When you remove all hope and despair is the norm, death must have looked very appealing.

[@jeangenie68]

Fantastic presentation of a horrific episode in our history. Also - I'm pleased you slowed it down. 😁

[@christophe5756]

This one was really heavy. Thank You for this.

[@thomasdadswell858]

One of your best videos yet, just watching this made me feel cold🥶

[@AK-74K]

Great video. I have been to Kolyma many times for work, it is a very eery and tough region. The remnants of the Gulags are everywhere

[@2bitmarketanarchist337]

Tell me more

[@AK-74K]

@@2bitmarketanarchist337 Driving from the Magadan airport for about 300km, every small town is a former Gulag. Past that, you have territory where there was no more gold deposits to be found at the time and thus there were no more Gulags, it becomes very desolate. It's actually impossible to see any remnants of the Gulags there now as the NKVD (predecessor to KGB) made sure that all the former prisoner camps got levelled to the ground and hidden once Khrushchev released all the prisoners in 1956. I also got close to the old Uranium mine and the processing plant, where uranium for the first Russian nuclear bomb was produced. Couldn't get anywhere near it as the Geiger counter went off the charts. Magadan itself isn't too bad of a city other than the shocking climate. There is a lot of industrialised gold mining there now, so there is money around in the region, but it all seems to go to Magadan. All other towns in Kolyma are extremely depressing

[@2bitmarketanarchist337]

@@AK-74K Damn sounds like a rough place to live and raise a family

[@jasonkesselring7375]

Eye opening. Thank you for taking on this topic. Excellent work! Highly informative.

[@WhiteRabbit1209]

Fascinating. Thank you for such an interesting and informative video, as always!

[@jayyyzeee6409]

"Thus the woods actually become huge swamps infested by clouds of midgets." at 3:14 **clouds of midgets have entered the chat**

[@WarrenFahyAuthor]

Midges. Biting flies.

[@jayyyzeee6409]

@@WarrenFahyAuthor Oops. My bad. LOL

[@mattpeacock5208]

I really don't like that, we should be saying "clouds of little people" C'mon man, don't offend my snowflake sensibilities!

[@deniseroe5891]

Sobering video. So little is taught about the atrocities of Stalin. Everything I have learned has been because I love history, the true history. Not the watered down stuff the kids get today in fear of offending someone. Thank you.

[@sarahredfox7942]

Geographics, Biographics, you are an excellent narrator! Your comment at the end- "I'm not going to ask you if you enjoyed-".... Your respect for the topics you speak of is exemplary and appreciated. Glad I found this channel, I'm now subscribed. 😊

[@PSBEadventures]

As someone who is fairly uneducated except in the technical field, later in life I discovered The Gulag Archipelago. It was the first book of it's kind I read all the way through. It was bone chilling to say the least. My grandparents feared an invasion of our homeland (US) and it helped me understand why. I have yet to fully recover from that book. Im so amazed that humans can do those things to one another. The fact the Solzhenitsyn reached deep inside and persevered through all those horrors is mind blowing. Thanks for this masterpiece of a video man! KZbin has been my go to for learning world history later in life! Keep it up!

[@satanspooge]

This was kinda hard to watch.. it's hard to imagine human life being so cheap

[@rashadpreston7389]

Cheaper than you know.

[@acepilot1]

Nazi Germany: Hold my beer

[@StaticImage]

@@acepilot1 It's not a joke

[@kraanz]

@@acepilot1 Not really, mate. Not really.

[@blainwilson7937]

@acepilot1 Stalin hated his own people.

[@ennuied]

I read the gulag archipelago by Solzhenitsyn and it is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read, was hard to put down. To me sending a man like Solzhenitsyn to a gulag is akin to forcing a man with perfect vision to stare directly into the sun, a model of pure evil.

[@AK-74K]

There is a better book on the Gulags called the 'Kolyma Tales' by Varlam Shalamov

[@ennuied]

What is the tone of the book? I really liked the satirical almost comical tone of the archipelago, the way Solzhenitsyn was mocking communism was savage.

[@fletcherjackson8594]

I love that there is suggested reading! You should totally include biographies and such to find out more in your videos, Simon!

[@frenchys_prospecting]

I actually did enjoy that video. I enjoyed it for the history and what was learned and changed. Another good one, whistler and team.

[@nicklastname9495]

Can we get Simon to narrate the whole internet? For such a dark topic, he really does a great job.

[@zeljkomikulicic4378]

In similar way was built Norilsk. City on far north on River Jenisej.

[@madmick3794]

Utterly facinating, great work by you and the teams behind the camera. Thanks for sharing.

[@Julia-uh4li]

My goodness, you are the busy bee with all your entertaining and informative videos. Thanks for all the work you do x

[@mikedrones537]

Also, The Holodomor in Ukraine was not caused by mismanagement. It was the deliberate starving of millions while they harvested record numbers of grain.

[@callespringer9718]

So the millions of Kazakhs and Russians that died, were also deliberate? Kazakhstan lost like 1/3rd of its entire population during the 1930's famine. Not to mention the Volga region in Russia, where millions died.

[@mikedrones537]

@@callespringer9718 Maybe they were infected with capitalist ideas like the returning soldiers who were thrown into gulags by their own government after being exposed to western freedoms. That USSR really knew how to take care of it people. Isn't that right comrade.....

[@alexanderthegreat2986]

@@mikedrones537 it wasn't deliberate.

[@mikedrones537]

@@alexanderthegreat2986 It ABSOLUTELY was !!

[@danfrancis2707]

There was also a famine under Lenin and his J3w cronies. The Povolzhye Famine.

[@brentgranger7856]

I learned of Kolyma from Eugenia Ginsberg in her book "Into the Whirlwind," which tells of her story as a communist official whom was sent through the gulag system until she eventually ended up in Kolyma. It's not as well-known as Alexander Solzhenitsyn's book, but worth a read.

[@Daniel-kq4bx]

Your videos are crazy informative but you can take a lot because its so well structured. Amazing work

[@todddougherty9492]

This was incredible... the vivid descriptive wording is amazing. It is a literal frozen hell on earth. Or was, I hope. Wonderful piece!!!!👏👏

[@todayonthebench]

Wouldn't mind seeing a video about that Stockholm place. Seems very well built for being so far north... Must be hard maintaining such lavish architecture in such a bitter cold environment. Or honestly, it isn't that cold. The golf stream does a good job keeping both Sweden and Norway nice and warm. And the Golf stream is also the reason why New York has a similar climate as Stockholm, despite being on the same Latitude as Madrid.

[@fuzzymilk]

Yeah.. It's currently 6°c here and we're a little more than an hour from midnight But sometimes we get those nice winters with -30°c too

[@ElijsDima]

No kidding. If/when the golf stream fails or ceases, northern europe is screwed.

[@g0679]

Elijs Dima No more opportunities for a hole-in-one.

[@johnsweeney6072]

What a way to reward your war veterans.

[@ingridakerblom7577]

Not defending the uusr, but many vetetrans are treated really badly, to this day, in the US.. many are homeless, no healthcare etc it's just as shameful as war itself..

[@wyattporter5783]

Simon man I love history and geography and you give me my fix for both of them. And I like how real you are. Love you guys and keep up the good work!!

[@ChuckHickl]

Good information here young man. Well done with stories that need to be told.

[@garethfairclough8715]

Land of gold and Gulags? Sounds like Stalin's playground.

[@kostam.1113]

What true communism looks like

[@cerberus9832]

I had a distant relative who was imprisoned in one of the gulags, the basterds would just beat you into a cripple for having dirty nails (in a work camp none the less)

[@jerryc.6932]

Amazing work and research!! Thank you for your time and effort you put in to your videos. Amazing content. Keep it up!!

[@ignitionfrn2223]

1:00 - Chapter 1 - Whiteout 7:50 - Chapter 2 - 3 lbs or rye & 23 years of hell 12:45 - Chapter 3 - Lenin's bodyguard 16:25 - Chapter 4 - Digging the grave 21:15 - Chapter 5 - The end of the gulags 23:15 - Chapter 6 - The teachings of kolyma

[@tsartomato]

ezhov was sentenced for "anti-soviet homosexuality"

[@Align]

tsartomato opposed to the desired revolutionary homosexuality

[@srcc5511]

I recognise a lot of these place names from "long way round". That is all....

[@davidwhitlock5625]

I Have to say I really enjoy listening to these geographic while I’m doing my paperwork in the morning at work. Keep it up please.

[@DaveeBoy]

Great job as always Simon. Thank you for telling this story

[@scottwatschke4192]

Wow-what a nightmare to be a prisoner in a gulag.

[@rusoviettovarich9221]

A more contemporary study of the entire GULAG written 2003, by Anne Applebaum is highly recommended.

[@dustyfox8532]

@Adam Marcinkowski I hate how people don't know of the jewish involvement in the soviet union. They think jews are just poor victims of the war. they don't know jews started the whole thing.

[@maulressurected4405]

@@dustyfox8532 Yup the Bolsheviks weren't good people, 60 to 100 mil plus killed yet it's not talked about.

[@danfrancis2707]

Try finding '200 years together' by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. It's not widely available in English due to it's revelations of who was behind the Gulag, Bolshevism, etc. Applebaum would no doubt neglect to mention this.

[@AK-74K]

@@dustyfox8532 Another moronic conspiracy theory. There were purges of the Jews during Soviet Union too, that's not even a secret. There were Jews in the Bolshevik leadership, but so there were Russians, Ukrainians, Georgians, Armenians etc.

[@AK-74K]

@Chris Russell Anti semitism was never punishable by death in the Soviet Union, just the say something like this s is showing how ignorant you are on the subject. And two Bolshevik party founders were Vladimir Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov, who are both Russian.

[@GreenMntMoto]

Your show really changes my perception of this planet - super thankful for you efforts

[@amb163]

Excellent video as always, Simon!

[@danielcejones]

If it really was the “ultimate distortion of socialist ideals”, why do similar labour camps keep appearing in all the other communist/socialist states? In fact it seems to happen quite consistently, almost every time implementing socialism is attempted.

[@michaelgrosvenor4707]

Name a capitalist country without a prison system.

[@akbrooks70]

Michael Grosvenor name a capitalist prison system that doesn’t have trial by jury of their peers. People sent to Gulags were never able to prove their innocence. They can’t quite be compared the same way...

[@michaelgrosvenor4707]

@@akbrooks70 France. Popped into my head in less than a second. But if you want to Google a full list of democracies without trial by jury, you'll find that it's the majority

[@g0679]

Red Warlord Posting from Scandinavia?

[@calinculianu]

It's not socialism per se. Norway and Sweden are socialist. It's the crazy communisty leninist insanity that was done. It has nothing to do with the ideology and everything to do with evil men of low origin doing horrible things when they gained power. Socialism was the lie they told. They were just mafia autocrats.

[@LIEgabrag]

Geographics should totally do Skellig Michael!!

[@ClannCholmain]

And Newgrange.

[@tracym9225]

Thank you, Simon, this was lovely.

[@Nyctophora]

Well told. Thank you. We need to remember this.

[@julierobertson9397]

I know about the horrors of the famine in Ukraine; I still cannot accept the depraved conditions deliberately created there. This video demonstrates that the evil of coercing people into selling their children as meat in the village market is by no means the lowest an exploitative and callous government will go to achieve its ends. My grandfather fled the aftermath of the 1905 Russian uprising under a tsarist death sentence.. He made the right choice.

[@ClannCholmain]

What did he do to get a death sentence?

[@lalalablablabla2130]

@@ClannCholmain you dont have to of done anything under communist rule

[@ClannCholmain]

@lalala blablabla, she said ‘a tsarist death sentence’, meaning it had nothing to do with communism which didn’t happen until over a decade later.

[@nicoheidenreich]

Those are the exact same sort of temperatures where I live. In fact it’s -30 right now. Ah Canada.

[@eladfalk5580]

You guys make amazing vids. Thank you for that!

[@poliscikosis3187]

Love the discovery of this channel so far! When you get time, you should do a piece on the Florida Everglades.

[@christophermerlot3366]

Shalavov"s Kolyma tales has been translated in a Penguin Edition and is essential reading.

[@AK-74K]

One of the most powerful books ever written. There is a Russian TV series telling the story of Shalamov's life made in 2007, which is brilliant too.

[@christophermerlot3366]

@@AK-74K I was not aware of that. Thanks for letting me know. I'll have to look that up.

[@AK-74K]

@@christophermerlot3366 It's called 'Lenin's Will'

[@chrisdonohue1607]

@@AK-74K Russian movies seldom have English subtitles.

[@AK-74K]

@@chrisdonohue1607 Maybe able to find a subtitles file done by a particular fan of the series on torrents?

[@alexanderveritas]

“Send the _Kulak_ to the _Gulag.”_ - Stalin (most probably)

[@Him.TheOneAndOnly]

That's only if they survived the dekulakization

[@joelkallio308]

Your videos are amazing. Learned so much from these.

[@wach9191]

Very good video. I'm from Lithuania, my neighbour is a gulag survivor as his parents were teachers and USSR tried to wipe out intelligentsia in it's occupied countries. However - they survived as some gulags were better than others, they were in fishing gulag, of course all fish was transported out, but they were left with heads, guts and tails that prisoners could cook and with no starvation survival of most was possible.

[@eastern-radical8814]

Sharty: Land of Gems and Troons

[@levelfive7662]

Ummmm, meds and sproke now?!?!

[@andrewmastronunzio615]

"Calima"- the forbidden land in Planet of the Apes....

[@tadasdovii8262]

@Freddy Krueger this is not funny

[@grimheathen]

Also a city in Mexico

[@andrewmastronunzio615]

@Freddy Kruegeryep, that's the one

[@sirandrelefaedelinoge]

@SPARTAMERICUS Khalimar...! KHALIMAR...!!!

[@tommylee2894]

Very good historical video! Information is spot on! Narration is professional grade!

[@therealfauxstradamus1135]

You are one of the best channels for topics such as this and I cannot thank you enough for your dedication and perfect articulation of just how evil our species can be.

[@wheeler1]

I thought he said "clouds of midgets" at first! LOL

[@jamarandre]

Great story. This is becoming my favorite channel.

[@jeffhines73]

You should read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich It’s a eye opener ...

[@quincekreb6798]

I was just thinking the same thing, as I read it in Literature class in the early 1980's.

[@ASolzhenitsyn]

I also highly suggest Kolyma Tales by Shalamov. It's a much more approachable read than something like The Gulag Archipelago, but really gives you a good insight into the camp.

[@jeffhines73]

“Can a man who's warm understand one who's freezing?”

[@Sohave]

The 1970 film is also really great. Further I think it could become a great school play since there are relativley few settings. The entire budget will be used on black telogreika jackets and old soviet winter uniforms for the guards.

[@KarlUrbahn]

I love these quality videos hosted by Simon Whistler 😁😁😁

[@kittiekat7819]

Thank you for bringing this period of history to light. Also, thanks for bringing up the atrocities of the Holodamor.

[@richardmanning6488]

Always enjoy your videos !

[@bonsaw57]

great author alexander Solzhenderson! 23:25

[@explorer1968]

Frozen Kolyma, hell for victims of a hellish man with a frozen heart: Joseph Stalin. My prayers to the unfortunate victims of the most atrocious regime on Earth: the Soviet Union!!

[@denniscash4072]

Thank you. Your videos are always wonderful.

[@yetanotherjohn]

Great viddy! BTW the book "Red Sky At Noon" by Montefiori gives an astonishing look inside the Gulag system!

[@themagicinfidel]

Love the content as always have you considered doing a video on the nuclear testing grounds in nevada

[@CyberspacedLoner]

Hanford Site in Washington State, Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Oak Ridge, Tennessee and Rocky Flats, Colorado, all of the main complexes of the Manhattan Project, Atomic Energy Commission.

[@scottk3034]

@@CyberspacedLoner You can tour Hanford, not sure about the others.

[@morgellon9449]

@@CyberspacedLoner Manzano Base is the most intriguing one for me. There's almost no information about it, especially what it's used for since 1992 when the nukes were moved out; it used to house about half the nation's nuclear arsenal, but now there is virtually no information about it, although there is definitely activity happening. There's no photos online of the interior, but it's a massive underground network with rooms the size of football fields. There are some maps of the tunnels and chambers online, though there's no telling how much they've been extended since that document was made. Manzano has been linked to multiple UFO cases, some with official documentation of reports in Project Blue Book from a 1958 incident, I think, and later with the AFOSI. There's a really interesting story involving Manzano Base and a man named Paul Bennewitz, which basically explains everything anyone needs to know about the UFO phenomenon.

[@TheMoonIsAConspiracyTheory]

My relative was at Kolyma. Many people are surprised why I'm so anti-communist.

[@oneeye3625]

Sadly there are idiots in the world who still think communism is a good idea.

[@TheMoonIsAConspiracyTheory]

@@oneeye3625 "X wasn't real communism; Y will be." But: y = x As they are correlated, regardless of other inputs.

[@joemitchell877]

Evil Atheist Communist .... Still A Horror .. College Professors ; SJW etc. !! NEO- Marxist !! I Am A Political Refugee From ' So Called Communist Cuba....Still Run By Raul Castro ..... Thanks Obozo For ' given In...

[@TheZombieburner]

My father's side of the family was forced to flee Europe because of the Russian revolution. Those who stayed disappeared. I will never not hate Communists for what they have done.

[@merdab8]

@@joemitchell877 yeah okay...your name is Joe Mitchell lol....Joey the refugee from Cuba. Nice right wing buzzwords. Why are you capitalizing every word? Next time just use caps lock lmao.

[@warwickeng5491]

2:27 that actually looks scenic as hell *casually jots it down the bucket list of places to visit*

[@rustyspurs771]

Simon, you've taught me too much about gold rushes for me to believe it could have been a land of plenty and opportunity.

[@Grk149]

I see this and then I look at videos of socialists in the US glorifying the gulag system and it makes me wanna throw up

[@Bikeadelic]

No one ever has glorified these atrocities. Certainly not a socialist. Infact most of the people who stopped this sort of thing in Russia were socialist.

[@Bikeadelic]

Targon of Assad it’s not a lie

[@arnoldthomsen6571]

@@Bikeadelic They were socialists. but they were also communists. socialism is an economic system communism is an ideology, they often go hand in hand.

[@Bikeadelic]

Arnold Thomsen who said they were? They did? You did? The west? The labels have been redefined so many times and attributed to so many things that don’t even for the definition of the person who attributed the label that it’s become completely invalid. As far as I’m concerned a socialist is someone who does not support what are essentially concentration camps. They support a state that is by the many for the many not by the many for the few which is currently how every single country on the planet is run. You can day china is communist and america is capitalist and you can say capitalism is a type of economy and communism isn’t or whatever you like. But at the end of the day everyone in america works for the benefit of a fee at the top and so does china.

[@megaton179]

@@arnoldthomsen6571 Communism is basically hardcore socialism, socialism in its most complete and intense form.

[@mattmccracken5741]

People need to here about the atrocities that have been committed in the name of communism

[@gordonferrar7782]

Brilliant work.

[@maligjokica]

My spine shivers from the name KOLIMA(after readind Arcipelag GULAG you know why is that) and Simon, you made me cry in the last sentence from Varlam Shalamov. Sad.. but great work geographic team.

[@budavargas]

“While, around the world, communism is seen as a roaring lion, in the Soviet Union is seen as a dead dog” -A.S.

[@justinpaul3110]

Here's a potential Top Tenz list: Top 10 reasons why the Soviet Union was the worst country that ever existed.

[@connorp4928]

to be fair to it, it did win the second world war

[@justinpaul3110]

@@connorp4928 well you know what they say about bad clocks...

[@connorp4928]

@@justinpaul3110 ahahah fair play man

[@bellicose4653]

@@connorp4928 and they had lots of help. Germany vs Soviet Union 1 on 1 would be a clear German victory. It was a team effort to win WWII

[@connorp4928]

@@bellicose4653 yeah that's also v fair- America/Britain paid for it cash, soviets in blood and France was also there

[@jenniferhayden1974]

This was a very enlightening video, especially as I know two people from Bulgaria that were sent to work camps and ended up married. Luckily, they both came out alive and saw Bulgaria become free from Russia.

[@stephenbardzilowski6618]

Simon This one of your best videos. Well done however, very sad history.

[@Russo-Delenda-Est]

"It's a place where the cold is so intense, it corrupts the soul." So, Minnesota? Here we just say Minnesota is so cold you have a drinking problem.

[@connorlightfoot4290]

give North Dakota a try

[@halonothing1]

Coldest I've ever been in is -40c/f it's the same in both units. I was in cottage country in Ontario at the time, near Lake Huron. I'll never forget walking down to the lakeshore that day. The lake hadn't frozen yet, so there were huge masses of steam pouring out of it. It looked like the entire bay was boiling. It really sucked living up there, but man was it ever beautiful at times. I even got to see the northern lights over the bay one lucky night. And there was nothing quite like watching thunderstorms come in over the water in the Summer. Or the snow drifts that formed in Winter which were larger than houses.

[@starscream548]

Damn what a way to start off a video with such an amazing quote

[@cerberus9832]

You americabs have no place with your comments

[@cerberus9832]

Its not always about you,uknow... the world is bigger than just you