How it was №1 25.09.1999 (1999)

The program recreates the events of 1953. A mass uprising of political prisoners began in 10 Norillag camps.

Oleg Shklovsky reads an excerpt from the historical and artistic work by Alexander Solzhenitsyn "The Gulag Archipelago".

Video chronicle of the 1930s.

Manual labor at industrial enterprises.

A large plant.

Chronicle of repressions.

Working in a logging site.

Workers with mine carts.

Barbed wire.

Yevgen Gritsak talks about the conditions of stay in the camp.

Points out the reasons that forced the prisoners to resort to strike.

Talks about provocations on the part of the camp administration - unauthorized executions, physical violence and beatings.

Video chronicle of the Gulag: the 1930s, repressions.

The "Case" folder.

Prisoners at work.

Camp guards.

People walk to the barracks.

Vera Mishne tells how after a burst of machine gun fire opened in the 5th camp department, all the camps in Norilsk, including their 6th department, declared a strike.

Vera Mishne says that she personally did not support the strike and the next day, together with others (a total of eighty people out of two and a half thousand) who shared her views, she went to work.

Pobisk Kuznetsov tells about informers in the zone, about criminals, about the internal regime of the camp, about the course of the strike and the first victims among the convicts.

Andrei Lyubchenko supported the rebels.

He tells about what kind of life awaited political prisoners.

The participants recall how communication between the camps took place, the rebels informed each other.

The participants of the program tell about cases of escape from the camps: about their organization, about how local residents handed the escapees over to the authorities.

Each one names his own article for which he was convicted.

Lev Netto tells about the methods by which he was forced to confess to espionage for America.

Later, already a prisoner, he joined a secret organization called the Democratic Party of Russia.

The party's charter and program are in a tar ball in a special hiding place in the Rudny mine.

Video footage.

Newspaper news item about Stalin's death.

Funeral ceremony.

Queues of people wishing to say goodbye to the Soviet leader.

Stalin in close-up.

The coffin with the leader's body is carried into the Mausoleum.

The amnesty expected after Stalin's death extended only to those convicted of criminal and domestic offenses.

Yevgen Gritsak talks about provocations by the camp administration, who wanted to demonstrate the importance of their irreplaceable work and dedication to the cause, in connection with the upcoming reorganization of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Security.

The participants in the strike refused to contact the local camp administration and demanded the arrival of a commission from the center.

All the strikers were unarmed and tried to prevent mass unrest.

A commission headed by Colonel Kuznetsov was sent to Norilsk.

Instead of the promised improvement of the prisoners' situation, a search for the most active participants in the mutiny and their elimination began.

The second stage of the strike began, demanding the return of their comrades.

Yevgen Gritsak tells how leaflets were distributed between camps: prisoners created kites that rose into the air on burning fuses and scattered paper texts.

On July 1, fire was opened on prisoners of the 5th camp division.

The protesters of the 4th surrendered to the camp administration.

The shootings continued until autumn.

The 3rd camp division suffered the most - its prisoners refused to contact the administration.

Video chronicle: A train with prisoner cars.

Paper folders with stitched cases.