Stalin’s attempt at creating a luscious and thriving satellite community outside of Russia’s borders on the island of Nazino looked great… on paper. In 1933, thousands of Moscow citizens were deported to an island on Siberia’s Ob River. In reality, the idea was based around the fact that Stalin wanted to subtly relocate citizens he deemed “undesirable” to Siberia and Soviet Kazakhstan because he didn’t want them within Russia’s borders. Of course, none of these people knew the real motive at the time.
The goal was for the people to build their own self-sufficient towns, but they weren’t going to be receiving any outside help. They were certainly going to die, and the disastrous effects of being dropped in the middle of nowhere with little supplies started to plague the “community” almost immediately. The gulag disguised as a promising new settlement was in no way ready to house the 3,000 that were shipped in by barge. People quickly began dying from exhaustion and exposure, but still, no one made any attempts to help. So, the citizens had to fight off starvation in their own way…
In a graphic recount of the island’s conditions, one eyewitness wrote: “People were dying everywhere. They were killing each other. On the island there was a guard named Kostia Venikov, a young fellow. He fell in love with a girl who had been sent there and was courting her. He protected her. One day he had to be away for a while, and he told one of his comrades, ‘Take care of her,’ but with all the people there the comrade couldn’t do much really. People caught the girl, tied her to a poplar tree, cut off her breasts, her muscles, everything they could eat, everything, everything…. They were hungry, they had to eat. When Kostia came back, she was still alive. He tried to save her, but she had lost too much blood.”