Svirlag, SvirLAG (Svirskiy Lager' â Svir Concentration-Camp, , also / â ) was a Soviet forced labour camp run by NKVD's GULAG Directorate. It was located on the river Svir (hence the name Svirskiy in Russian) in the forests by the town Lodeynoye Pole, 244 km north-east of Saint Petersburg, in Leningrad Oblast, operated in the 1930s (Joseph Stalin's time) and onwards. SvirLAG concentration camp was supplier of wood to Moscow and Saint Petersburg.
The administration of the camp was based in Svirstroy (Svir Construction Directorate) on the Svir River. The convicted inmates worked in mines extracting mica, stone and clay.
The camp was established on November 17, 1931.
The camp was located in the medieval buildings of what was formerly the Alexander-Svirsky Monastery. Bolsheviks closed and vandalized the monastery in 1918 (it finally ceased in 1925). The holy relics were removed, monks partly executed and partly expelled. The chief of the monastery archimandrite Evgeniy Trofimov was executed on October 23, 1918 along with 5 monks behind the monastery walls. The monastery buildings were turned into prisons, barracks, and mental asylum.
The number of those who died or were killed in Svirlag in 1930s (the times of the most numerous and heavy executions that took place in SvirLAG seem to be 1931âÂÂ1937) is measured in thousands of victims. In 1935, 36.500 inmates were kept in this camp.
On September 22, 1998 Ministry of Culture of Russia and Russian Ministry of State Property signed decree about delivery of monastery back to Saint Petersburg parish of Russian Orthodox Church.
Sampson Sievers â hieromonk (born of English mother) of Saint Petersburg's Alexander Nevsky Lavra was imprisoned and tortured in this camp (from 1932, what is witnessed by archival documents and personal testimonies), though survived.