Towers with searchlights and sentries standing on them went beyond the horizon. Strings of barbed wire stretched between the poles formed several barricading rows, between which lay streaks of blinding light from searchlights.

Between the first and last rows of barbed wire, guard dogs wandered lazily.

The beams of searchlights fell from some of the towers and threw themselves on the ground, slid over it, climbed onto the roofs of the barracks, fell from them to the ground, and ran again through the camp, surrounded by wire.

Some of the searchlights licked the space outside the camp and, having run around a certain sector, returned to the rows of barbed wire, only to start running again in a few moments.

Soldiers with machine guns, standing on the towers, continuously scanned the space between the rows of wire barriers. The lull did not last long, the wind suddenly broke again, and everything roared again, hummed, howled, prickly snow covered a bright patch of light, and darkness enveloped the valley.

The special purpose camp was still asleep, but suddenly there was a blow on the hanging rail, at first one, at the entrance to the camp, and then under the blows the steel rails rang in various places of the camp.

The searchlights on the towers were frantically swept around, the gates of the camp opened, and covered trucks with educators, guards, regime workers and civilian employees began to enter the zone one after another.

Cars drove around the camp, stopped at the barracks, people jumped out of the trucks and four people went to the barracks, walked around it from all sides, checked the safety of the bars on the windows, the presence of locks on the doors, the absence of undermines in the walls or other signs indicating the escape of prisoners.

After examining and making sure that nothing was damaged, the guards unlocked the doors of the barracks, and at this time the searchlights continued to rush around even more convulsively, and the sentries carefully surveyed the camp from the towers. The dogs between the rows of wire began to nervously run around their area.

Лагерь особого назначения начинал свой трудовой день. Тысячи, десятки тысяч заключенных приступали к работе.

Темнота медленно светлела, наступал серый северный зимний рассвет, но ветер по-прежнему рвал снег, кидал его в воздух, выл и гудел, встречаясь с малейшим препятствием, и все дальше и дальше нес жесткий, колючий снег.

За пределами зоны лагеря, невдалеке от него, горело несколько костров, пламя которых то вспыхивало, то затухало.

Костры горели и днем и ночью беспрерывно, отогревая мерзлую землю для братских могил, в которых хоронили умерших заключенных. Лагерь ежедневно посылал туда сотни и десятки своих жителей, отдавая этим дань установленному лагерному режиму.

БАРАК