Butugychag, Stalin Death Valley. Magadan Oblast, Russia.
This is the 2nd part of Alexander Perelygin’s trekking story about Butugychag Gulag Camp in Magadan Oblast, Russia.
The first one was Butugychag, Gulag’s most preserved labour camp in Kolyma. Part 1.
From the interview with H. Niyazov:
- I was not in Butugychag, God saved me. We considered them as a penal camp.
- How were convicts buried?
- They did nothing special. Just bestrewed deads with corpses with sand or snow, if they died in winter, and that’s it.
- Any coffins used?
- Never. No one thought about coffins.
- Why were dead convicts buried in coffins in on one of three Butugychag cemeteries and why were corpses’ heads cut off?
- That’s because doctors cut them…
- What for?
- Among prisoners, there were some rumours about experiments as a part of training.
- Was it done at Butugychag’s or somewhere else?
- In the Butugyachag camp only.
- When did you learn about experiments?
- Approximately in 1948-1949, just in the form of small talks to scare us…
- Maybe, when they cut off heads, convicts were alive?
- Who knows… There was a big medical camp. There were even professors among workers…
..Friday, local mass media reported that the Tenkinsky highway was washed out again and the Russian Emergency Ministry didn’t recommend any driving on the road. But I was already determined and there were no wish to step back…
I departed in the early morning around 6 am… That time I decided to go alone, as it would give me more speed up.
