Magadan

Magadan is a Russian city that is the capital of a region called Magadan Oblast. It is a coastal city located in the northeastern part of Russia on the Sea of Okhotsk. Magadan is the largest port city in the region and is accessible to other parts of Russia by air or road.

The area of Magadan had been occupied for centuries by various Native people before the Russian colonization started in the mid-seventeenth century. Some Native groups that lived and traveled through the area include the nomadic Even people, the hunters known as Siberian Yupik, and the nomadic hunter-gatherers known as Chukchi. In the 1930s, there was an influx of non-Native people who subjected the Native people to live on collective farms and had their communities shut down. Some members of the original Native communities still live in the region today.

When the city was "founded" in the 1930s by Soviets, the area was turned into a place for labor camps for political dissidents and criminals. The government organization known as the GULag ran the labor programs that ended up having more than 800,000 people in them working in prisons, forests, factories, and mines as slave labor. The city was used for these camps through the 1950s. After the death of Stalin in 1953, the labor camps dwindled and people started voluntarily going to the city to live and work. Major industries in the city include fishing, gold mining, food manufacturing, and distilleries.

The following is a list of sights to see in Magadan:

• Magadan History Museum
• Vadim Kozin Home/Museum and Statue
• Mask of Sorrow
• Mammoth and Deer Statues
• Monument to Explorers
• Cathedral of the Holy Trinity
• Lenin Statue
• Nagayev Bay