Sharashka

Sharashka (sometimes Sharaga or Sharazhka, Russian: шара́шка) was an informal name for secret research and development laboratories in the Soviet Gulag labor camp system. Etymologically, the word sharashka is derived from a Russian slang expression sharashkina kontora ("Sharashka's office"), an ironic, derogative term to denote a poorly organized, impromptu, or bluffing organization.

The scientists and engineers at a sharashka were prisoners picked from other camps and given relatively better conditions in exchange for their slave-like work on scientific and technological problems for the state. The results of this research were usually published under the names of prominent Soviet scientists without credit given to the real authors, whose names frequently have been forgotten. Some sharashka inmates, brilliant scientists and engineers released during and after World War II, continued independent careers and became world-famous.

Contents

History

In 1934 Ramzin and other engineers sentenced in Industrial Party trial were formed into special design bureau under GPU management. In 1938, Lavrenty Beria proposed to create "Department of Special Design Bureaus at the NKVD USSR" ("Отдел особых конструкторских бюро НКВД СССР"). In 1939 it was renamed into the "Special Technical Bureau at the NKVD USSR" ("Особое техническое бюро НКВД СССР"). In 1941 it received a secret name, the "4th Special Department of the NKVD USSR" ("4-й спецотдел НКВД СССР"), existed until 1953. Since 1939 the department was headed by general Valentin Kravchenko under Beria's immediate supervision.

In 1949 the scope of sharaskas significantly increased. Previously the work done there was of military and defense character. The MVD Order No 001020 dated November 9 1949 decreed installation of "Special technical and design bureaus" for a wide variety of "civilian" research and development, in particular in the "remote areas of the Union".

Notable sharashka inmates

Reference

  • L.L.Kerber, Von Hardesty, Paul Mitchell, Stalin's Aviation Gulag: Memoir of Andrei Tupolev and the Purge Era (Smithsonian History of Aviation & Spaceflight S.), Smithsonian Institution Press, (hardcover, 1996, 396p.), ISBN 1560986409.

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