Belomor: The White Sea-Baltic Canal
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Belomor: The White Sea-Baltic Canal, Built By Forced Labor
The White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal
Created by NormanEinstein, December 6, 2005..
Pubished under a GNU Free Documentation License. (See below)
This map shows the route of the White Sea-Baltic Sea Canal ("Belomorkanal") between the White Sea and Baltic Sea. It shows the lakes Vygozero, Onega, and Ladoga, and the Sivr and Neva rivers too.
An Accounting of Belomor
- International Institute of Social History
- Belomorkanal
- Gulag: Soviet Forced Labor Camps and the Struggle for Freedom
- Andrew Stuttaford, National Review Online
- stats about belomor
- (In Russian) Gives statistics including deaths.
- The Soviet Gulag, Ed. Paul Gregory & Vslery Lazarev
- Chapter 8, The White Sea-Baltic Canal by Mikhail Morukov
Forced labor (political prisoners) working on the Belomor Canal, 1933
(Image is in the public domain)
Making History for Stalin: The Story of the Belomor Canal
Built with forced labor, the Belomor project has been a forbidden topic for half a century. With access to recently opened archives and to interviews with Canal construction survivors themselves, Ruder examines the project and its attendant literary works--drama, poetry, novels, and the collectively written History of the Construction of the Stalin White Sea-Baltic Canal--to create an unusually broad understanding of Stalinist culture. She argues that the project was the first to institutionalize the philosophy of perekovka, the idea that a new people who personify the Soviet Union in action and deed could be created through forced labor and ideological reeducation.
As both a construction project and a literary event, Belomor was characterized by contradictions: enthusiasm versus revulsion, good will versus cynicism, self-destruction versus self-preservation, and scorn for the West versus a desperate hunger to impress it. Ruder shows that these juxtapositions capture the tension that infused many other events at the time, turning Belomor into a microcosm of life and literature in Soviet Russia.
Making History for Stalin: The Story of the Belomor Canal
"A unique, incisive, behind-the-scenes study of what is truly the paradigmatic text of Stalinism."-- Russian Review
"This is a remarkable piece of work, a symbiosis of history and literature. . . . A generally excellent, and in some parts brilliant study. It is thoroughly researched and offers a hitherto unknown piece in English in the jigsaw puzzle of Soviet manipulation of history, this time through literature. . . . Should be of great interest to all specialists in Russian literature, history and political science." -- International Journal on World Peace
"The history of forced labor in the Soviet Union, though greatly publicized, still invites scholarly investigation, both in terms of literary works, historical archives (some of which still remain closed to researchers), and biographical materials. Ruder's monograph is a competent examination of the most infamous of the early Soviet forced-labor projects, and we can only hope that its publication represents the beginning of a new, sustained inquiry into this period."-- Slavic and East European Journal
"A fascinating work. . . . Given the growing interest in the Stalin period among historians and literary scholars, this work is truly cutting-edge."--Catharine T. Nepomnyaschy, Barnard College
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Image is in the public domain
More Books on Belomar
The Route of the Canal
The canal takes advantage of several lakes and rivers on its journey
Created by NormanEinstein, May, 2006..
Pubished under a GNU Free Documentation License, (See below)
Belomorsk google map
From Belomorsk the route runs South from the White Sea to Lake Vegozero, by way of the Vyg River, entering the lake at Nadvoitsy
Lake Vygozero
(Image is in public domain)
Half way between Belomorsk and Medvazjegorsk, on the Western shore of Lake Vyg, is the city of Segheza. Built to serve a large paper. pulp and packaging factory, taking advantage of the canal and the railway. 50% of Segheza's production is directed to the cement industry.
The old canal administration building
Medvazjegorsk is at the northern point of Lake Onega
Photo: Henri Bergius (henribergius), June 30, 2005
This file is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 License
The canal actually leaves the lake at Povonets, to the east of Medvezhyegorsk where there is a series of locks known as the Stairs of Povonets. (The flow of water is northwards.)
Lake Onega
The settlement on the West of the lake is Petrozavodsk, capital of the Republic of Karelia. Lake Onega is connected to Lake Lagoda by the Svyr River, which you can see running Westwards from the lake towards the bottom left of this image.
Petrozavodsk is also the headquarters of companies that navigate the canal and the lakes today, including The White Sea and Onega Shipping Company.
Lake Lagoda
(Image is in the public domain)
The Svyr Riverr enters the lake on the lower right. The passage from the lake to St. Petersburg via the Neva River (exits lake lower left) is part of the already existing Volga-Baltic Waterway.
The official route of the Belomor Canal from the White Sea to the entrance to Lake Lagoda is 227km, of which only 48km are artificial. This seems to makes the loss of life involved in building the canal even more appalling.
Links on Belomar
- Making History for Stalin: The Story of the Belomor Canal | Canadian Slavonic Papers | Find Articles at BNET
- Making History for Stalin: The Story of the Belomor Canal
- The White Sea Canal: A Hymn of Praise for Forced Labour
- The White Sea Canal: A Hymn of Praise for Forced Labour
- Belomorkanal - Archive
- This is a great site for photographs of Belomor
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Joe Bassett
Dec 4, 2010 @ 9:28 am | delete
- There was 250,000 who died digging the White Sea Canal. They lived in tents and had very little food with rags for clothes and an endless supply of people. They probably had 500,000 who worked on the Canal. The Jews try to play down the numbers just like they try to play down the numbers killed during the bombing raid of Dresden. Where it's believed 500,000 may have died. They keep repeating numbers for Dresden from 30,000 to 70,000.
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Dec 5, 2010 @ 9:38 am | delete
- I don't understand what the motivation would be to play down the numbers. Even the lower figures are horrible enough, but why not report the full extent of the cost in lives of the canal?
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Joe Bassett
Dec 5, 2010 @ 12:43 pm | delete
- Joe Bassett-They play down the numbers so people won't ask...250,000 and how come we don't hear about this stuff? They played down the Dresden numbers, so they won't conflict with the numbers when we bombed thge two Japanese cities. If they said 500,000 at Dresden. People would say...How come we haven't heard about this stuff. They don't want people to know that whole German cities were bombed. But if you think the Jewish Commies murdered 65 million from 1917 to 1989 in the former Soviet Bloc and how much have you heard about that?
The ones who lower the numbers are the Jews.
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