View source for Sharashka

{{Short description|Soviet-era prison for scientists}}
[[File:Здание Омского речного пароходства где разместилось ОКБ Туполева.jpg|thumb|Tupolev's sharashka TsKB-29 of NKVD in [[Omsk]] (1943)]]
 
In the [[Soviet Union]], a '''sharashka''' ({{langx|ru|шара́шка}}, {{IPA|ru|ʂɐˈraʂkə|}}; sometimes ''sharaga'', ''sharazhka'') was a type of secret [[research and development]] laboratory operating from the 1920s to the 1950s within the [[Gulag]] labor camp system, as well as in other facilities under the supervision of the [[Soviet secret service]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Birstein |first1=Vadim J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2XqEAAAAQBAJ |title=The Perversion Of Knowledge: The True Story Of Soviet Science |date=2013 |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=9780786751860 |page=28,293-296}}</ref> Formally various secret R&D facilities were called "special design bureaus" ({{Lang|ru|особое конструкторское бюро, ОКБ}}) and similar terms. Etymologically, the word ''sharashka'' derives from a Russian [[slang]] expression ''sharashkina kontora'' ({{lit|Sharashka's office}}),  an ironic, derogatory term to denote a poorly-organized, impromptu, or bluffing organization, which in its turn comes from the criminal [[argot]] term ''sharaga'' ({{lang|ru|шарага}}) for a band of thieves, hoodlums, etc.<ref>Compare: [http://gramota.ru/slovari/argo/53_16265 Словарь русского арго]</ref>

The scientists and engineers at a ''sharashka'' were prisoners picked by the Soviet government from various camps and prisons and assigned to work on scientific and technological problems. Living conditions were usually much better than in an average ''[[taiga]]'' camp, mostly because of the absence of hard labor.

Some of the scientists and engineers imprisoned in ''sharashkas'' were released during and after [[World War II]] (1939–1945) to continue independent careers; some became world-renowned.

== History ==

On May 15, 1930, the [[Supreme Soviet of the National Economy]] and [[OGPU]] issued a secret [[circulaire]] "Об использовании на производстве специалистов, осужденных за вредительство" ("On the use in production of specialists convicted of [[wrecking (Soviet Union)|wrecking]]"). It ordered the use of "engineers-wreckers" to "eliminate the consequences of wrecking" and to provide them with the necessary literature, materials and devices for this.<ref>{{ill|Lev Lurye|ru|Лурье, Лев Яковлевич}}, Leonid Malyarov, ''Лаврентий Берия. Кровавый прагматик'', 2015, {{isbn|5977507534}}, p.24</ref><ref>[http://www.ihst.ru/projects/sohist/repress/bel99rg.htm ЛАГЕРНАЯ СИСТЕМА И ПОЛИТИЧЕСКИЕ РЕПРЕССИИ (1918–1953), Л.П.Беляков]</ref> It also said that "the use of the wreckers must be organized in such a way that their work was carried out on the premises of the organs of OGPU."

In 1930 [[Leonid Ramzin]] and other engineers sentenced in the [[Industrial Party Trial]] were formed into a special design bureau under the [[Joint State Political Directorate]] (OGPU), which was then the Soviet [[secret police]].{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

In July 1931, the OGPU seized control of the {{ill|Intercession Convent|lt=Intercession Convent|ru|Покровский монастырь (Суздаль)}} in [[Suzdal]] and the following year created a special prison laboratory (known as the Bureau of Special Purpose or ''BON'') where around nineteen leading plague and [[Tularemia|tularaemia]] specialists were forced to work on the development of biological weapons. Colonel Mikhail Mikhailovich Faibich, a specialist in [[typhus]], was the first director of ''BON''. The laboratory was in operation until 1936, when the scientists were transferred to a Red Army microbiology facility on [[Gorodomlya Island]] on [[Lake Seliger]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Rimmington|first=Anthony|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zfhyDwAAQBAJ&q=rimmington+stalin|title=Stalin's Secret Weapon: The Origins of Soviet Biological Warfare|date=2018-11-15|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-092885-8|language=en}}</ref>

In 1938, [[Lavrenty Beria]], a senior [[NKVD]] official, created the Department of Special Design Bureaus at the NKVD USSR (Отдел особых конструкторских бюро НКВД СССР). In 1939, the unit was renamed the Special Technical Bureau at the NKVD USSR (Особое техническое бюро НКВД СССР) and placed under the control of General {{ill|Valentin Kravchenko|ru|Кравченко, Валентин Александрович}}, under [[Lavrentiy Beria|Beria's]] immediate supervision. In 1941 it received a secret name, the 4th Special Department of the NKVD USSR (4-й спецотдел НКВД СССР).

In 1949, the scope of the ''sharashkas'' significantly increased. Previously the work done there was of [[Military history of the Soviet Union|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]], particularly in the "remote areas of the [[Soviet Union|Union]]".<ref>[http://www.memorial.krsk.ru/DOKUMENT/USSR/491109.htm "Приказ МВД СССР об организации "шарашек"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140722073830/http://www.memorial.krsk.ru/DOKUMENT/USSR/491109.htm |date=2014-07-22 }}, a [[Memorial (society)|Memorial]] webpage (retrieved January 2, 2014)</ref>

The 4th Special Department was disbanded in 1953.{{citation needed|date=November 2023}}

== Notable sharashka inmates ==
{{main|:Category:Sharashka inmates}}
*[[Robert Ludvigovich Bartini]] (or Roberto Oros di Bartini) an aircraft designer and scientist.
*[[Valentin Glushko]], a chief rocket engine designer. ([https://web.archive.org/web/20031106120120/http://www.mn.ru/english/issue.php?2003-34-15 His biography at MN]) 
*[[Leonid Kerber]], an aircraft radio equipment designer.
*[[Yuri Kondratyuk]], a pioneer of [[astronautics]] and [[spaceflight]], the inventor of the [[gravitational slingshot]].
*[[Lev Kopelev]], a writer, another inmate of Marfino (a prototype for Rubin from ''In the First Circle'')
*[[Sergei Korolev]], an aircraft and rocket designer, later the chief designer for the [[Soviet space program]].
*[[Vladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev|Vladimir Myasishchev]], an aircraft designer.
*[[Vladimir Petlyakov]], the chief designer of the aircraft families [[Petlyakov|''Pe'' and ''VI'']]
*[[Nikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov]], an aircraft designer (arrested for a brief period).
*[[Leonid Ramzin]], the inventor of the straight-flow boiler
*[[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn]], a writer. His novel ''[[In the First Circle]]'' is a vivid account of life in sharashka Marfino.
*[[Léon Theremin]], a pioneer of electronic music, the inventor of the [[theremin]] and a passive [[The Thing (listening device)|eavesdropping device]].
*[[Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky]], a geneticist and radiobiologist ([http://www.genetics.org/cgi/content/full/158/3/933 His biography at genetics.org]).
*[[Andrei Tupolev]], the chief designer of the aircraft families [[Tupolev|''Tu'' and ''ANT'']].

==References==

<references />
* 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|1-56098-640-9}}.

==External links==
{{wikisource|ru:Приказ МВД СССР от 9.11.1949 г. № 001020|A 1949 MVD order about Sharashkas}}
*{{cite web |url=http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj00/win00/kerber.htm |title=Review of ''Stalin's Aviation Gulag'' by Leonid Lvovich Kerber |access-date=2007-06-23 |author=Maj David R. Johnson, USAF |work=Aerospace Power Journal |archive-date=2007-06-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070619111450/http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj00/win00/kerber.htm |url-status=dead }}
*[http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/staff/academic/harrison/vpk/data/ The database of research and design establishments of the Soviet defence industry, 1927&ndash;67] by Keith Dexter, The U. of Warwick.

{{Soviet Union topics}}

[[Category:Gulag industry]]
[[Category:Political repression in the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Soviet phraseology]]