Aerial diagram of the Maximum Security Camp at Perm 36.

Aerial diagram of the Strict Camp Zone at Perm 36.

Cutaway drawing illustrates a 20 meter-deep fence line at Perm 36.

Color photograph looking through the peep hole of a cell door in the punishment cell block at Perm 36. Prisoners would be sent from the regular barracks to the poorly heated, dank punishment cell block (the ShIZO or Penalty Isolator) for violations of camp discipline, failure to fulfill labor norms, or at the whims of camp guards.

This color photograph of the interior of a penalty isolator (ShIzo) cell at Perm 36 illustrates the austere conditions that prisoners endured. Prisoners living in the general barracks could be sentenced to time in the penalty isolator, basically a prison within the camp, for failing to follow camp rules, refusing to work or at the whim of camp guards or administrators.

Photograph taken March 2006 at the Gulag Museum at Perm 36 in the Maximum Security Zone which in the post-Stalin era held many of the most famous prisoners from the Soviet human rights (dissident) movement.