The Solovetsky Archipelago encompasses sites that recount the tragic history of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp (SLON) and the Solovetsky Special Purpose Prison (STON), both of which operated on the islands.
Established in 1923, the notorious Solovetsky Camp was the first special-purpose camp in the USSR and served as a precursor to the Gulag system. In 1937, it was reorganized as a prison and operated until 1939. Afterward, the archipelago was transferred to the Northern Fleet to establish the Northern Fleet Training Detachment.
Because of its remoteness, the Solovetsky Monastery had long been used as a place of imprisonment for political and religious offenders, dating back to the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The monastery’s prison function continued on the archipelago until 1903 and in separate sketes until 1917.
According to recent estimates, approximately 100,000 people passed through the Solovetsky Camp and Prison, enduring harsh conditions and torture. Solovki became a place of repression, suffering, and death for those accused by the Soviet authorities of counter-revolutionary activities or political crimes.
Prisoners included clergymen, intellectuals, politicians, cultural figures, former officers, and nobles. Notable among them were Dmitry Likhachev (academician, scientist, and cultural scholar), Pavel Florensky (priest, theologian, philosopher, and scientist), Alexander Meyer (philosopher), Boris Shiryayev (writer), and Nikolai Antsiferov (historian and local scholar).
The largest section of the camp was located within the Solovetsky Kremlin. Branches and subdivisions were also established on Sekirnaya Mountain — a men’s punishment isolation unit — and in the Savvatievsky Skete.
Additional branches operated on the islands of Anzer and Bolshoy Zayatsky — which housed a women’s penal isolation unit — as well as on Bolshaya Muksalma, the main camp farm, and at other locations across the archipelago.
Prisoners contributed to the extensive camp economy, working in metalworking and electromechanical workshops, brick, leather, pottery, and iron foundries, as well as in animal breeding, milling, construction, logging, peat extraction, agriculture, and salt production.
They also participated in the extraction of iodine and agar-agar from algae, as well as in fishing and the processing of marine animals.
Despite harsh conditions, the camp maintained an active cultural life. Prisoners published newspapers and magazines, operated a library, radio station, and theatre, and took part in sports clubs, a local history society, vocational training, and literacy classes.
Since 2010, the former camp barracks built in 1929 have housed an exhibition of the Solovetsky Museum-Reserve entitled «Solovetsky Camps and Prison, 1920–1939,» which explores the history of the Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp.
The exhibition presents documents, photographs, prisoners’ personal belongings, historical newsreels, and stories of notable inmates.
When visiting sites associated with the camp — such as Sekirnaya Mountain, Anzer Island, and Bolshoy Zayatsky Island — pilgrims and tourists learn about their history during the early Soviet period.