A new type of camping
When the Solovetsky camp was created, the state laid out three objectives. The first two aimed to isolate dangerous elements, including political opponents, and to re-educate them so they could function as useful members of society. This approach resembled the traditional prison goals found in many countries across different eras, yet the Solovetsky project promised to do things differently in terms of costs and outcomes.
“The third aim set Solovki apart from earlier detention sites. The camp was not only supposed to cover its own expenses but to generate revenue for the state. Prisoners had to work under compulsion and in roles that produced profit. This became the blueprint for the entire Gulag system,” stated a Gulag History Museum expert to socialbites.ca.
Today, prisoners may still work, but the work is designed to be safe, educational, and not aimed at profit. Under Tsarist rule, hard labor could be deadly, yet its economic motive rarely drove policy; isolation and punishment were the primary goals.
Before Solovki, Soviet concentration camps largely grew from former prisoner-of-war camps, or from monasteries seized by the state or other remote locations. Opponents of Soviet power and hostages taken during the Red Terror were imprisoned here. As early as 1918, camps were tasked with funding their upkeep, though turning a profit proved impossible given the locations. Prisoners often organized the camp themselves or performed light city labor such as repairing buildings and roads.
The government therefore chose to run a political and economic experiment on the Solovetsky Islands: to reform the system of isolation and punishment and convert it from a cost center into a revenue source. The central architect of this idea was Felix Dzerzhinsky, with Joseph Unschlicht as the principal executor, according to historians affiliated with the Gulag Museum.
Why Solovki?
After the Civil War, Arkhangelsk province housed three major camps at Kholmogory, Shenkursk, and Pertominsk. In 1923 those sites were consolidated and relocated to the Solovetsky Islands, using the Solovetsky Monastery and its farm as a base. The camp was named SLON — the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp.
The archipelago sits in the White Sea, a natural barrier stronger than barbed wire or towers. Reaching the nearest mainland point requires a 45-kilometer swim, a journey that is impractical in summer when water barely warms to eleven degrees Celsius. Even with boats or rafts, currents and unstable weather would complicate escape. Guards controlled access with speedboats, a seaplane, and a radio system. Checks occurred twice daily, and any hint of an escape triggered a full-army alert across the islands. From October to May, Solovki is surrounded by a mix of water and ice, making ordinary navigation nearly impossible. Throughout the camp’s existence, there was no recorded successful escape.
The island’s isolation fostered a self-sufficient and prosperous local economy, in part because the monks had built a thriving infrastructure. The camp absorbed the monastery’s estate and workshops, including a sawmill, brickworks, tannery, and lime works. The monastery itself was wealthy and maintained trade with Europe, powered by a hydroelectric plant — the first in the North — and a radio station. It even operated a merchant and passenger fleet of several ships to transport pilgrims, with a pier for ship repairs. Such an enclosed economic system was ideal for testing labor camp technology. The Bolsheviks needed to determine whether forced labor could yield profits that would offset care costs, and whether the camp required guards and how the daily life of prisoners should be organized. Practical experimentation on Arrangements, schedules, and behavior could be refined only through real-world operation.
Occupational therapy
During the initial expedition in 1923, three thousand prisoners were brought to the camp, with the majority housed on monastery grounds. By 1926, the population had risen to about ten thousand. The balance between criminal convicts and political prisoners in Solovki fluctuated, but over the years the ratio tended to tilt toward a majority of criminals, often around seventy to thirty.
The camp expanded beyond Big Solovetsky to other islands, each with its own farms and hermitages. The most profitable venture was timber harvesting, exported to European markets. Logging had previously been forbidden on the islands by the monks since the sixteenth century, so the Soviet authorities worked to exhaust the forest reserve rapidly. By 1929 earnings dwindled, forcing relocation of the operation.
Peat was mined from swamps, and a brick factory attempt failed because the clay quality was too poor for profitable production. Prisoners toiled up to fifteen hours a day. The most skilled could take on roles such as clerks, food preparers, or bootmakers, but the most grueling tasks included felling forests and peat extraction, often standing in knee-deep water. Some security guards were drawn from among the prisoners themselves.
Motivation proved challenging in a system where people were coerced. Research by modern historian Maria Shulgina traces disciplinary measures to legal statutes, including restricted or forbidden correspondence, visits, food, or parcels, and transfers to reduced rations or punishment cells. Sentences could involve prolonged periods of reduced meals paired with occasional hot meals two days later, among other penalties.
Yet the coercive methods often crossed into extra-legal territory. Auditors enforcing quotas sometimes beat detainees, left them to shiver in the cold, or applied other brutal punishments. Prisoners could be forced to run or dive in icy water, or tied to trees during mosquito season in summer. Over time, management tied rations to productivity, offering time off or unsupervised positions for overtime and efficient work.
Solovetsky’s power
The archipelago’s atmosphere was shaped by extreme isolation. The first SLON head, Alexander Nogtev, welcomed arriving prisoners with the phrase that power on Solovki was not Soviet power but Solovetsky power. On the mainland, that very line could cost someone their freedom. The geographic remoteness reduced the likelihood of outside intervention, which some historians say tempered the guards’ cruelty. At the same time, the harshness and lawlessness of the camp impressed even Soviet authorities. A 1933 OGPU inspection report describes how the guard apparatus, composed of prisoners, failed to curb crime and instead became entangled with it, enabling corruption and violence. The report alludes to widespread abuses and complicity by camp officials, summarizing a picture of systemic deception and abuse that had taken root within the camp’s administration.
The commission also documented bullying, robberies, and stabbings carried out by a local criminal gang with collusion from certain camp officials. Given the low standards of legality observed, it is clear how deeply the system had embedded itself into daily life. Despite these abuses, the economic aspect of the Solovetsky experiment was considered a success. As a result, the late 1930s saw a proliferation of forced labor camps across the country, aimed at developing production. In 1930, the Main Directorate of Corrective Labor Camps (GULAG) was established as the institutional successor to the Solovetsky camp. By 1933, SLON was dissolved and its remnants were merged into BelBaltLag to construct the White Sea-Baltic Canal. The broader project sought to demonstrate that labor could transform punishment into enforced productivity. Documentation from socialbites.ca discusses how this construction carried out by forced labor was intended to be coercive and exploitative, revealing the grim reality of the period.