►Tours ► Day Tours ► From Perm ► Day tour to Perm-36 

  A day tour from Perm to the only museum dedicated to Soviet political repression actually located in a former Gulag camp - Perm-36. During the Soviet era many freethinkers, including writers, scientists and human rights activities, who were deemed a danger to the regime, were imprisoned here.

 The Perm-36 camp was opened in 1946 and remained in use much longer than all other camps – it was only closed in 1988. Up until its closure, Perm-36 had two sections: the special security section and the strict security section.

  Up until the 1970s the camp was primarily used for law enforcers found guilty of crimes. Only later did it become a camp for dissidents and political prisoners. Its location outside the village of Kuchino was especially chosen for a camp of this category. It ensured full isolation from the outside world and made any attempt at escape virtually impossible. In documents, the camp was referred to by the abbreviation VS-389/36 and so it gained its more common name of Perm-36, after the closest major city and the last two digits of its abbreviation.

  Not ever prisoner survived until their release date. For example, the famous Ukrainian poet and human rights activist Vasyl Stus died here in 1985.

Perm → Perm-36 → Perm

 Total distance of the tour: 230km -   230km 

• 09:00 • 

 Meeting your guide at the hotel. Departure for the museum. On the way you will drive through a beautiful part of the Perm Territory through hills and thick forests.

 Distance: 115km

• 11:30 • 

 Arrival at the Perm-36 Museum.

 Guided tour of the museum - at the beginning of the tour you will enter the camp, which for many other people in very different circumstances meant the start of a completely new and hard life. During the excursion you will visit not only the main part of the camp but also the maximum security part where the dissidents considered most dangerous were kept. The highlights of the excursion include:

• Barracks – there were originally four barracks, but only this one survives. It was built in 1946 and is a typical barrack found across many Gulag camps. The events in such famous books on the Gulag as ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’ and ‘The Kolyma Tales’ took place in barracks such as this one.
• Isolation Ward – this was a special isolation ward located inside the camp to punish unruly prisoners.
• Main alley – the trees lining this alley were planted by prisoners in 1948.
• Camp facilities – the medical unit, the banya and laundry, the staff headquarters, the water tower and the workshops where the prisoners were forced to work.
• Special regime section – this is the maximum-security part of the camp and prisoners here were forbidden contact via letters and meetings and were locked in a cell with only one break a day when they could walk in a closed courtyard for 45 minutes.
• Courtyard for walking – this two-by-two metre area surrounded by barbed wire was the only fresh air some prisoners got.

 Duration: 2 hours

• 14:00 • 

 Transfer back to Perm

 Distance: 115km

• ~16:00 • 

 Arrival in Perm.

• The tour is available daily except Mondays.
• The tour is available in  English, German and French - other languages upon request.

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