Solovki: From Monastery to Gulag

 Solovki: From Monastery to Gulag

In May 1920, the Solovetsky Monastery was closed. Soon after, two institutions were established on the islands: a forced labor camp for prisoners of the Civil War and those sentenced to hard labor, and the state farm “Solovki.” At the time of the monastery’s closure, 571 people lived there (246 monks, 154 novices, and 171 lay workers). Some left the islands, but nearly half remained and became hired workers for the state farm.

After the 1917 Revolution, the new authorities viewed the wealthy Solovetsky Monastery as a source of material assets. Numerous commissions pillaged it mercilessly. In 1922 alone, the Famine Relief Commission removed over 84 poods of silver, nearly 10 pounds of gold, and 1,988 precious stones. Icons were stripped of their ornate frames, and jewels were pried from miters and vestments. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of Narkompros staff members like N. N. Pomerantsev, P. D. Baranovsky, B. N. Molas, and A. V. Lyadov, many priceless artifacts from the monastery treasury were saved and transferred to central museums.

At the end of May 1923, a massive fire broke out on the monastery grounds, lasting three days and causing irreparable damage to many ancient buildings.

In early summer 1923, the Solovki Islands were handed over to the OGPU (the Soviet secret police), which established the Solovki Special Purpose Forced Labor Camp (SLON). The camp took over nearly all monastery buildings and land. Authorities issued an order stating: “It is necessary to liquidate all churches located in the Solovetsky Monastery and consider it permissible to use church buildings as housing, given the acute housing shortage on the island.”

On June 7, 1923, the first group of prisoners arrived at Solovki. At first, all male prisoners were housed within the monastery, and women in a wooden hotel in Arkhangelsk. Very quickly, however, the camp expanded to occupy all the monastery’s hermitages, sketes, and fishing outposts. Within just two years, the camp spilled onto the mainland, and by the late 1920s it had spread across vast areas of the Kola Peninsula and Karelia. The Solovki Islands became just one of 12 branches of the larger penal system, which played a significant role in the emerging GULAG.

Over the years, the camp underwent several reorganizations. In 1934, Solovki became the 8th division of the White Sea–Baltic Canal project, and in 1937 it was transformed into a political prison under the NKVD’s Main Directorate of State Security (GUGB). The prison was finally closed in late 1939.

During the 16 years of the camp’s and prison’s operation, tens of thousands of inmates passed through the islands. Among them were members of noble families and the intelligentsia, leading scholars from various fields, military officers, peasants, writers, artists, and poets. Solovki also became a place of exile for many bishops, clergy, monastics, and laypeople of the Russian Orthodox Church who suffered for their faith. Even under the harshest conditions, priests remained an example of Christian mercy, humility, kindness, and spiritual calm. They continued to fulfill their pastoral duties, offering both spiritual and material help to those around them.

Today, we know the names of more than 80 metropolitans, archbishops, and bishops, and over 400 monks and parish priests who were prisoners at Solovki. Many of them died from hunger and illness or were executed in the Solovki prison. Others perished later in different parts of the Soviet penal system.

 The Criminal Element on Solovki

Criminal prisoners made up about 20% of the camp’s population. The remaining inmates were primarily political: White Army officers, anti-Soviet activists, Mensheviks, clergy, and so on. In this environment, the “blatnye” (career criminals) had access to plenty of people outside their hierarchy whom they could exploit for labor instead of working themselves.

Here’s how Dmitry Likhachyov described the situation in his memoirs:

“I already knew about this before Solovki, from my time in Petrograd. I had acquaintances in the Anarchist Club... At first, it was a club of intelligent, ideological anarchists. But over time, more and more criminals started showing up, and eventually the club turned into a den of bandits and robbers. The most successful robbers were awarded medals. They looked like the St. George Cross, but instead of St. George, the center featured a plate with a chicken on it, and a fork stuck into the chicken. On the reverse side, instead of the imperial motto, it read: ‘There is no justice in the world!’”

“Every criminal knew this slogan and acted accordingly — there is no justice in the world, so we must restore it ourselves. They ‘equalized’ wealth by robbing the rich. These criminals saw themselves as ideological fighters for justice, which is why they hated 'mokrushniki' (murderers) — those who killed. The most disturbing part was that this philosophy of ‘restoring justice’ had already infected 14- and 15-year-old boys.”
(Dmitry Likhachyov, “Notes and Observations”)

Another observation comes from Dmitry Khmelnitsky:

“The criminal world was the only alternative to Soviet ideology — the only legal anti-Soviet party in the USSR. The ‘blatnye’ openly despised the authorities. Soviet slogans and morality meant nothing to them. You could force them to obey, but you couldn’t make them lie... It was a brutal, inhuman alternative to Communist ideology. But there was no other.”
(Dmitry Khmelnitsky, “Grimace at Power,” 2004)