DALSTROY ORGANIZATION AND MISCELLANEOUS ECONOMIC INFORMATION ON THE KOLYMA AND INDIGIRKA REGIONS; POSSIBLE URANIUM MINE AT SUGUM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP80-00810A006800190008-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 29, 2008
• Sequence Number: 8
• Publication Date: May 24, 1955
• Content Type: REPORT

Approved For Release 2008/09/29: CIA-RDP80-0081 OA006800190008-2
REQUIREMEN
This material contains information affecting the National Defense of the United States within the meaning of the Espionage Laws, Title
18, U.S.C. Secs. 793 and 794, the transmission or revelation of which in any manner to an unauthorized person is prohibited by law.
F /1 TT T T T\ T TT m T A T
COUNTRY USSR (Magadan Oblast/Yakut ASSR) REPORT
SUBJECT Daistroy Organization and , DATE DISTR.
Miscellaneous F4conomic information
on the Kolyma and indigirka Regions; NO. OF PAGES
PnRRihle TTranitlm Mine at G gum
DATE OF INFO.
PLACE ACQUIRED
DATE ACQUIRED
?CPOQ
. CENTRAL -INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
001 O~p003ir
24 May 1955 25X1
Dalstroy Personalities
1. The first exploratory group went to the Kolyma region around 1932a The first
chief of the area was Pere'gin (fnu)..1a very good man who was liquidated after
two or three years. He was succeeded by a Garanin (fnu), during the early
part of World War. II. Enroute, his ship was captured by the Japanese,, who
killed him and sent a.Japanese who resembled him in his J.i&ge, After.
two or three years, Garanin's sister came from Moscow to visit her brother.
When she arrived in Magadan, she was. shown a picture of the false Garaniz
and realized that he was an impos d The false Garanin tried to escape Wand.
drove to the'airfield at Susman where two of his assistants were killed. He
was captured alive.
2. Soon after World War II, the chief of Dais,troy was.Lt. General Ivan Nikish'vo
It was a very difficult time,. because the Americans had.stopped sending
Lend-Lease food when the Soviets refused to pay for it. There were terrible
famines and about ten million prisoners died., some four million in-the:winter
of 1946-1947., and another six million in the following year. The situation
was so desperate that people were crawling.on all fours from starvation.. Only
700 of the 1+,000 men working on the Kulu-Neksikan road.survived.1 The situation
improved when food which had been taken from the Japanese, was made available:
Nikishov was blamed for the famine and removed.
Nikishov was succeeded,. for three or four months, by his assistant, Derevyanko
(fnu). Then came Lt Polkovnik Petrenko (fs u).:. who~w4t.,.v6ry kind
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to prisoners. In 1949 or 1950, the papers announced his death, but the
common rumor was that he had been poisoned.
4+. The Kolyma region was subdivided into directorates (upravleniye), normally
headed by a colonel (polkovnik). The directorates were subdivided into
individual mines (priisk), normally headed by a major. The mines consisted
of a headquarters section (0LP - otdeleniye lagernogo punkta) and mine pit
sections (uchastok) which had both numbers and names. These sections were
normally headed by a man with the equivalent rank of a captain or a senior
lieutenant. Under the OLP there might also be smaller subdivisions, called
5. There was a total of nine directorates under Dalstroy, Following are the
names and headquarters' location where known:
a. Indigirka. Directorate: Headquarters in Ust Nera. In 1951, the head
of the directorate was Lt. Col. Smul_ov. (fnu), who was promoted and left.
b. Neksikan Directorate: The Akrectorate was very large. The towns of
Kurunakhsala and Adagalakh were in the Neksikan Directorate.3
c. Levyy Bereg or Usvitl Directorate: Usvitl is a suburb of Levyy Bere
(:N' 62-21, E 150-140)? both names were used.
d, Seymchan Directorate: Headquarters in Seymchan,
e. Tenkin Directorate: Centered around Kulu. It extended south of Kulu and
west of Palatka (N 60- -
Vtoroy or 72nd Imo.
f. Yagodnyy: A directorate or an otdeleniye65
g. Palatka: A directorate, rayon,,or other division. The most southern
mine of Neksikan Directorate, Gardeyets, forms the northern limit of the
Palatka area.
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h. The Sugum Uranium Mine also formed a separate urayleniye or otdeleniye,
The Uliskit Wolfram Mine was a separate otdeleniye.b
6.
the total number of forced laborers in the Kolyma region
was about three million. There were only a few free people in that area;
7. The addressi pr a pera n..l4 tfhe_Kq.yma. region, yarried. according:. to the. location.
One example is as follows: Dalstroy, gored. Magadan (abbreviated. "gor.fl),
Tenkinskiy Upravleniye, Priisk Nrd_(Dalatroy, Town of Magadan, Tenkin Direct-
orate, Mine No. .). In other cases, the directorate would be omitted, and
the address would be written; Dalstroy, Gor. Magadan, Pos61ok Ust Nera, Priisk
Nr. _(Dalstroy, Town of Magaten, Village of Ust Nera, Mine No. -). This was
done because Ust Nera was a well-known place.
Wolfram Mine
$. A wolfram mine was located at Uliskit 9 The work was e mely hard, and
many people died, xt7the majority of
the prisoners in Uliskit were Vlassovites and Bandera Ukrainians. In 1949
or 1950, there was a revolt in the mine, and some 500 prisoners were killed.
A Japanese major escaped with a Russian toward Yakutsk. They were recaptured
and returned to the Kolyza region,
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9.
Possible Uranium Mine at Sugum
Source heard about a uranium mine in Sugum from two prisoners who had
worked at Sugum, between the Del and the Art k Rivers. The mine had
another name until about 194--s,
The only basis for the prisoners' believing
that the ore actually contained uranium was that workers employed there were
never told what they were doing. In other mines they knew, that they were
getting gold, cobalt! or caseiterite. At Sugum, when a worker asked what the
ore contained., he was told that this was none of his business.
Hospitals
10. There was a rayon hospital in Ust Nera with about 500 beds.
0 the largest hospital of the area was a& Levyy Bereg and that there was
another larger hospital at 72nd km (Seymdesyat Vtoroy ka),7
egrees centigrade. In Magadan., the minimum temperature was 46 degrees
(sic).
11. There was a reindeer sovkhoz nine km from the western bank of the Indigirka
River, across the river from the Kinersala Gold mine.8 There were about
1,000 reindeer there. near Oymyakan there were some 25X1
8,000 reindeer in seve e usually about 800 to 1,000
head in each sovkhoz. ~7there were reindeer sovkhozy 25X1
near Susman, at Berelyak N 2-47, E 148-07). Some prospecting groups were
also supplied with food by reindeer transportation.
Temperatures
the minimum temperature along the Indigirka River was minus 25X1
4. Washington Comment.- According to previous reports., 72 IKx Camp is 72 km
north of Magadan,
the town of Neksikan
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is the headquarters of the Chay Urinskoye Directorate.
C
3. points 25 and 47 for locations of these towns
5. Washington Cent:
headquarters of the
8.
Yagodnyy is the 25X1
points 3 and 41b.
point 4 for further details of the hospital at Ust Nera and
for a report on the hospital at Levyy
point 10.
Comment; Uliskit is possibly the same as Alyaskitovyy
approximately N -50, E 141-35), on the Arangas River.
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