"100 Siberian Postcards"

Archipelago Gulag is the cataclysm of the Soviet Union's dark past. The forced labor camps, masterminded by Lenin and established in 1919 reached their height in the 1930s under Stalin. In 1934 the Gulag, directed by NKVD had several million inmates... Here, this chilling remote region of Siberia, were sent not only criminals convicted of crimes, but mostly those who were critical of the regime, including many from the intelligentsia. Most projects, such as canals, bridges, dams were constructed by the prisoners of Gulag... Later Alexandr Solzhenitsyn was to write the true account of the Gulag, not really known to the majority of the Soviet people until Gorbachev's era...
While Gulag was closed, Siberia has preserved this dark past in its veins. Cruel by its weather and terrain, it captures one's imagination by its wildness and remoteness from civilization... A startling account of this mesmerizing quality can be glimpsed from the wonderful book by Richard Wirick "100 Siberian postcards." In his book Rick Wirick has caught the region in one swoop and memorialized it in unforgettable postcards...