Sharashka
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Sharashka (sometimes Sharaga or Sharazhka, Russian: IPA: [ʂʌˈraʂkə]) 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", possibly from the radical meaning "to beat about"), an ironic, derogatory term to denote a poorly organized, impromptu, or bluffing organization.
The scientists and engineers at a sharashka were prisoners picked from various camps and prisons and assigned to work on scientific and technological problems for the state. Living conditions were usually much better than in an average taiga camp, especially bearing in mind the absence of hard labor.
The results of the research in sharashkas 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.
History
In 1934 Ramzin and other engineers sentenced in the "Industrial Party Trial" were formed into a 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
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a writer. His novel The First Circle is a vivid account of life in sharashka Marfino.
- Lev Kopelev, a writer, another inmate of Marfino (a prototype for Rubin from The First Circle)
- Sergey Korolev, a head of the Soviet rocket space program.
- Valentin Glushko, a chief rocket engine designer. ([His biography at MN])
- Andrei Tupolev, the chief designer of the aircraft families Tu and ANT.
- Vladimir Petlyakov, the chief designer of the aircraft families Pe and VI ([The Petlyakov aircraft]).
- Vladimir Myasishchev, an aircraft designer.
- Leonid Kerber, an aircraft designer.
- Yuri Kondratyuk, a pioneer of astronautics and spaceflight, the inventor of gravitational slingshot.
- Georgy Langemak, a co-inventor (with Korolev) of the Katyusha rocket launcher.
- Helmut Gröttrup, a German rocket scientist from Peenemunde laboratory. (Its head Wernher von Braun was acquired by the US).
- Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov, an aircraft designer (arrested for a brief period)
- Leon Theremin, a pioneer of electronic music, the inventor of the theremin and an electronic eavesdropping bug.
- Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky, a geneticist and radiobiologist ([His biography at genetics.org]).
- Leonid Ramzin, the inventor of the straight-flow boiler ([The Industrial Party affair], [His biography in Russian]).
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.
External links
- [The Kerber's book review in Aerospace Power Journal]
- [The database of research and design establishments of the Soviet defence industry, 1927–67] by Keith Dexter, The U. of Warwick.
- [The translator's note to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle, Harper & Row (1968)]
- [Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: "Saving the Nation Is the Utmost Priority for the State"] "Moscow News"(2.05.2006)
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