The Gulag was the Soviet service overseeing forced labor camps in the former USSR where dissident political prisoners, suspects, etc. were exiled.
They operated from 1923 to 1961. Some existed for a few years and others for decades.
The service that commercialized the products produced in these camps was called Dalstroy.
There hundreds of thousands of people disappeared, were tortured, lost all contact with their families and lived in appalling living conditions. Most of the time without legal court proceedings. They were places with very high mortality.
Most of them closed during the period of apostalization.
[Source: el.wikipedia.org]
