Soviet gulag

(Newser) - After emerging from a coma and recovering from a poisoning, Alexei Navalny has another difficult stretch ahead of him. News reports in Russia said Monday that the opposition figure is being sent to a prison infamous for its treatment of inmates. Navalny will avoid Siberia or the Arctic, sites of...

(Newser) - A museum studying Soviet prison camps said Friday it has discovered a secret Russian order in 2014 instructing officials to destroy data on prisoners—a move it said "could have catastrophic consequences for studying the history of the camps." Up to 17 million people were sent to the...

(Newser) - Forget the Seven Wonders of the World. WebUrbanist takes a look at seven places that make you wonder why people ever settled there:

• St. Kilda, Scotland: Although this archipelago is known for 16-foot waves and wind speeds up to 130mph, humans called it home for 2,000 years—until 1930,

...

(Newser) - John Noble, an American who wrote two memoirs about the decade he spent as a Soviet prisoner, including 3 years in the gulag, died last week at 84, the Telegraph reports. Taken into Soviet custody in 1945, Noble and his father were incarcerated in Dresden, Germany, where they had run...