Kotlas
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Kotlas (Russian: Котлас) is a town in the south of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, situated at the confluence of the Northern Dvina and Vychegda Rivers at . Population: 60,647 (2002 Census). The town has the largest[citation needed] paper mill in Russia and also is a center of the timber industry and an important river port and a railroad center (standing on the railroad connecting central Russia with Komi Republic).
The place was probably inhabited from the ancient times but got an official town status only by the Provisional Government of Russia on May 3, 1917.
Kotlas is served by Kotlas Airport and is home to Savatiya air base.
[edit] Gulag
Since the 1930s Kotlas was a place of deportation of kulaks being a center of the forest industry. It was managed by the Kotlaslag division of Gulag. Later it hosted all possible categories of people repressed during the Stalin era. A particularly significant population of Poles existed in the area, with whole Polish villages resettled here in 1920s and 1930s.
Labor camps existed within the territory of the city until 1953. Besides logging and paper industry, the occupation of inmates were plant, housing, bridge, and railroad construction. Most of camps were unguarded barrack settlements.
In addition Kotlas was a major transit point for deportees transferred further to the North and East, since it was a railroad terminal point.
There is a Kotlas chapter of the Sovest (Conscience) organization, which seeks to preserve the memory of these times and to seek compensation for victims.
[edit] Sister cities
[edit] External links
- (English) City web-site
- (English) Kotlas and the GULAG
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Cities and towns in Arkhangelsk Oblast |  |
| Administrative center: Arkhangelsk Kargopol | Koryazhma | Kotlas | Mezen | Mirny | Naryan-Mar | Novodvinsk | Nyandoma | Onega | Severodvinsk | Shenkursk | Solvychegodsk | Velsk |
