Building one’s own prison: mudbrick production and embodied prisoner labour in Kazakhstan’s Soviet-era Gulags

One of the Soviet Gulag’s largest camp systems was Karlag, located in central Kazakhstan. The project, Central Asia’s Gulags, is the first to explore this expansive forced labour system from an archaeological perspective. Recent satellite and pedestrian surveys have identified annular pit features common to multiple camps. This study presents preliminary survey results from the site of Aktailak, a camp point within Karlag, with a focus on camp areas dense with annular pits. Data gathered from the targeted excavations of two barracks are used to calculate and humanize prisoner labour involved in mudbrick construction by focusing on embodied practices. Additionally, as unique features, annular pits have the potential to help identify unknown prison camps in the vast Kazakh Steppe.