Susuman, Russia

History

It was founded in 1936 as a settlement of a sovkhoz called Susuman, named after the nearby river of the same name. In 1938, the settlement was greatly expanded to become a center of gold mining in the western part of what is now Magadan Oblast under the control of Dalstroy.

Gold mining and other industrial operations in the region were largely reliant on corrective labor camps of the Gulag system, with a large number operating in Susuman's vicinity. From 1949 until 1956, Susuman was the base for one of the Soviet Union's largest corrective labor camps, the Zaplag of the Dalstroy program. During this time, up to 16,500 prisoners were kept in the camps.

One of the camp burial grounds was located beyond the town cemetery. Stakes bearing signs with numbers survived but the inscriptions on the nameplates disappeared. Several crosses have also survived. A tall Orthodox cross has been fastened to one of the trees in the burial ground.

Susuman was granted town status in 1964. In the post-Soviet period, the population dropped significantly, from a high of around 18,000 inhabitants in 1991, down to 4,439 as of the 2021 Census.

From the History section of Susuman on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.