The Sunlight of Odessa: Poet Ilya Kaminsky

The word gulag is an acronym for a Russian phrase that translates loosely as “the main camp directorate”—a slightly sinister, Orwellian phrase perfectly fitting the gulag’s purpose as a place of labor and punishment.

Labor camps, long a part of the Russian prison system, were redesigned by the Soviets as camps for re-education, as well as for punishment. Forced psychiatric treatment, combined with hard physical labor, the cold Siberian climate, and little nutrition—black rye bread and potatoes were staples of the gulag diet—led to a high death rate. And almost anyone could be interned in the gulag. Through Order No. 00486, even the wife of a man deemed to be an “enemy of the people” could be put on trial if it could be proved—or sometimes just suspected—that she knew about their husband’s actions. One such woman was Yulia Kaminsky.