AUTONEWS

The "Road of Bones": the macabre Russian highway built with the blood and bones of gulag prisoners. Literally

The Russian Kolyma Highway, better known as the "Road of Bones", was built last century as part of Stalin's first Five-Year Plan with the aim of facilitating the transport of troops and gold from remote Kolyma to Siberia.

We are talking about one of the coldest areas on the planet, with temperatures that can reach -60°C in winter. For its construction, labor from the gulags was used, where the inmates were forced to live and work in inhumane conditions.

Many were unable to withstand such extreme conditions, and this gloomy road not only claimed thousands of lives, but also the bones of the deceased who worked on it were used as a substitute material for natural stone.

Today, drivers who dare to travel on the only road in one of the most inhospitable regions of the globe, continue to risk their type. It is one of the most dangerous roads in the world.

Each meter of road built cost a life... The writer and journalist Varlam Shalamov collected the horrors experienced in Kolyma after being arrested for his Trotskyist leanings and being forced to do forced labor on the road of Bones and transferred them to the 'Tales of Kolimá', one of the most tragic and grandiose epics of the 20th century made up of six installments that shrink the soul.

From the first of the Stories, Shalamov enters the white hell of Kolyma, a region located on the eastern limit of Siberia to describe the history and horrors that accompany the not exaggerated black legends that accompany the "Road of Bones" .

The construction of it arises in a context in which Joseph Stalin was in command of a powerful and vast territory that was difficult to cover, in a gloomy Europe that was experiencing difficult and very turbulent years. The great powers could barely dust themselves off and lick their wounds as they rearmed for World War II.

The first of Stalin's famous Five-Year Plans, between 1928 and 1932, included, among many other actions, the construction of the "Kolima highway", a road that did not need any other name, since it was going to be the only paved road in that inhospitable region. located almost 6,000 kilometers from Moscow.

At that time, the road was vital to facilitate the transport of troops and precious materials such as gold. Although the concept of highway here is a euphemism, since in reality it is a barely paved roadway built on unstable terrain that crosses practically uninhabited forested areas and is currently considered one of the most dangerous roads in the world.

For a construction of this magnitude in the early 1930s, the Stalinist government did not hesitate to use labor from the gulags, which was forced to work in subhuman conditions.

The inmates in these concentration camps numbered in the tens of thousands and barely survived a few weeks in the hundreds of labor camps that were set up in the area, under the orders of the Dalstrói, a mysterious corporation created by the People's Commissariat for internal. Commanding the daunting task, Eduard Petrovich Berzin, a former Latvian soldier and member of the Cheka known for his lack of scruples.

The forced labor camp located in Sevvostlag was notable for housing “potentially dangerous enemies of the regime”. Among the slaves who were punished there were prisoners of war, religious, accused of collaborationism, and intellectuals opposed to Stalinist practices.

These, in extreme conditions, had to complete the stretch of road that would connect Yakutsk (a city in the Republic of Sakha, close to the Arctic Circle) and Magadan, the most important city of Kolimá.

Specifically, two thousand kilometers of highway to be built exclusively with shovels and wheelbarrows; twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week...with temperatures close to -60º C in winter.

Local legend says that "each meter of road cost one life among those who worked it." And gulag slaves were sent to work on the road continuously from its inception until 1953, the year Stalin died.

So the Soviet gold rush literally buried countless human lives on what was already known as 'the road of bones': prisoners who died while working there, due to exhaustion, frostbite or a mixture of both circumstances, they were buried right there, since their bones were used as a substitute material for the natural stone for the construction of the road.

One of the most dangerous and gloomy roads in the world... On the route, there are cities such as Tomtor or Oymyakón, which currently dispute the dubious honor of being the coldest permanently inhabited town on the planet. In fact, -67.7º C was recorded in Oymyakón in 1933, the coldest temperature ever known in a habitable zone on Earth.

It's hard to believe anyone could survive to tell the tale. But the writer and journalist Varlam Shalamov left testimony of the horrors experienced in Kolyma after being arrested for his ideology. He did forced labor in deplorable conditions between Kolimá and Magadán and even took nursing courses during his agony in life.

After Stalin's death, Shalamov was able to leave that “land of white death”, as he defined it in his “Kolima Tales”, which he began writing in 1956, when he was finally able to return to Moscow.

The first edition was published in London in 1978 and five more stories followed. After closing the circle with his complete works, the flame of this survivor went out on January 17, 1982.

Today the Kolimá region and specifically the "Trassa" - or route, as this road is commonly called - is used daily by many people who have no other choice but to do so, although it also attracts numerous tourists, adventurers and curious.

A large part of the road remains paved today, but there is still an almost inaccessible section that in the thaw season becomes a quagmire where frequent serious accidents occur.

On occasions, the road, turned into an impassable quagmire, forever traps the wrecked vehicles without giving them the option of rescue and mixing them with the remains of those who worked tirelessly on the highway until they lost their lives and, according to the locals, are still living. there day and night.

Irene Mendoza-senior editor Motorpasión