Moscow: The best of the rest. The GULAG was the name of the government institution that presided over Russian 'corrective' (read: forced) labour camps for many decades. The number of GULAG camps peaked during Stalin's regime, and even lasted into Gorbachev's reign. GULAG prisoners were forced to build bridges, canals, roads, and helped mine coal, copper and gold. Indeed, it is said that the proliferation of GULAG camps in the North & West of Russia (see map ABOVE RIGHT) was because of the amount of gold suspected to be in that region. GULAG camps peaked under Stalin's paranoid, totalitarian control, and what is estimated to be over 1.7 million people died as a direct result of the inhumane GULAG conditions. Stalin will forever more be remembered for genocide. What struck me most of all once inside the GULAG museum in Moscow (ABOVE LEFT), was the sheer amount of GULAG camps... It's incredible. If you click on the map (above right), you'll see that the red circles represent the major camps of up to tens of thousands of people, the triangles represent the camps containg two to five thousand people, and the numbered red circles represent the camps for, er, 'special purpose'. Bleak... Very, very bleak.

LEFT: The Bolshoi. This is the one picture I'll show, as squillions of pictures exist of this place!

MORE PICTURES OF MOSCOW | TRAVELS Home Page

Although closed in preperation for a new exhibition, the MMOMA (Moscow Museum of Modern Art) museum gardens were open to the public. This is the MMOMA located on Петровка 25 (Petrovka 25) by the way, as there are several other parts of the museum scattered across the city.