Never Remember

Searching for Stalin's Gulags in Putin's Russia

By: Masha Gessen, Misha Friedman

Narrated by: Masha Gessen

"A book that belongs on the shelf alongside The Gulag Archipelago. -- Kirkus Reviews

"A short, haunting and beautifully written book." -- The Wall Street Journal

The Gulag was a monstrous network of labor camps that held and killed millions of prisoners from the 1930s to the 1950s. More than half a century after the end of Stalinist terror, the geography of the Gulag has been barely sketched and the number of its victims remains unknown. Has the Gulag been forgotten? Writer Masha Gessen and photographer Misha Friedman set out across Russia in search of the memory of the Gulag. They journey from Moscow to Sandarmokh, a forested site of mass executions during Stalin's Great Terror; to the only Gulag camp turned into a museum, outside of the city of Perm in the Urals; and to Kolyma, where prisoners worked in deadly mines in the remote reaches of the Far East. They find that in Vladimir Putin's Russia, where Stalin is remembered as a great leader, Soviet terror has not been forgotten: it was never remembered in the first place.

Masha Masha Masha

Incisive, thought provoking, haunting, present. An antidote to propaganda and mass directed reasoning. Masha's voice matches the text. Good listen.

Movingly read, expertly written

A movingly read, well documented and expertly written memorial worth every moment to remember forever.

Fantastic Read

We must remember. If we don’t we will, unfortunately, repeat the GULAGS here in America and around the world. Communism / Marxism has no redeeming qualities.

monumental propaganda. I now have a new tool

I have in the last several years learned more about history then I had ever been taught in the indoctrination centers. thank you for giving me a new view of this multifaced beast we face yet again.

communism never died. it just adapted and evolved.

a wonderful reminder never to forget

I took so many notes for the volunteer work I do helping Russian, East European, and central European people to find their family history and especially to know the importance of finding this family history. this is an exceptional, well-sourced, and especially good book for the fact that it has incredible personal examples whose experiences come even more to life because they are similar to my own.