![]() ![]() Along the road we met the locals unnerved by our destination they all cracked the same joke: 'Wherever you commit your crime, you will be punished in Nyrob.' Outside the window, barbed wire began to border the road we began to see watchtowers – the beginning of the Zone. We had an order to install a boiler in Nyrob. Russians living in this territory, larger than England, call the south 'our land' the north they call 'the Zone' this is because the north is a map covered in prison camps. We installed boilers in Tatar villages where only broken Russian was spoken, in Komi settlements during wild Pagan festivals, in the schools of potash colonies each with their own swimming-pool-sized nuclear bunker and in the north of the Perm region. Russians living in this territory call the south 'our land' the north they call 'the Zone.' For a territory that borders Siberia, nothing should be more crucial than its boilers, but these are breaking down: festering Soviet tanks, horrific nineteenth century hunks – things unspeakably defunct. For two years, I worked with a small company installing Italian boilers into institutional buildings across Russia’s vast Perm region. That last item is how I came to know about prison camps. Inside giant ministries, these little dots on the Russian map are allocated resources – petrol drums, timber saws, processed chicken quotas sometimes, even a new boiler. Russia’s prison camps are the stuff of legend and whispers Activists create Facebook groups to forlornly ask for their closure. ![]()
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