Magadan

The settlement of Magadan was founded in 1929 in the Ola river valley, near the settlement of Nagayevo. During the Stalin era, Magadan was a major transit centre for inmates sent to Gulag forced labour camps. From 1932 to 1953, it was the administrative centre of the Dalstroy organisation—a vast forced-labour gold-mining operation and forced-labour camp system. The first director of Dalstroy was Eduard Berzin, who between 1932 and 1937 established the infrastructure of the forced labour camps in Magadan. Berzin was executed in 1938 by Stalin, towards the end of the Great Purge. The town later served as a port for exporting gold and other metals mined in the Kolyma region. Its size and population grew quickly as facilities were rapidly developed for the expanding mining activities in the area. City status was granted to it on July 14, 1939. Magadan was visited by U.S. …

The Magadanka River, a 192 km long river flowing to the Sea of Okhotsk, passes the city. The city is located on the isthmus of the Staritsky Peninsula by the Nagaev Bay. Ecologically situated in the Northeast Siberian taiga, the town's arboreal flora is made up of conifer trees, such as firs and larches, and silver birches. The city is surrounded by mountains to the west and northeast. Permafrost and tundra cover most of the region. The growing season is only one hundred days long. The city of Magadan lies on approximately the same longitude as the suburbs of Greater Western Sydney, Australia, which are located near the eastern end of the 150th meridian east and close to the 151st meridian. It also lies on a similar latitude to southern Scandinavia and the far north of Scotland. The climate of Magadan is subarctic (Köppen climate classification Dfc). …

Magadan contains a number of cultural and educational institutions, including the Regional Museum of Anthropology, a geological museum, a regional library, and a university. It is served by local newspaper Magadanskaya Pravda. The town features in the gulag literature of Varlam Shalamov, and inspired an eponymous song by Mikhail Krug. Actor of film and stage Georgiy Zhzhonov worked at Magadan Theatre for two years after being released from a gulag in May 1945. Magadan was also home to Eastern Syndrome, a Soviet and Russian rock group active in the 1980s. In 2004, Magadan featured in the Long Way Round television series, documenting a motorcycle journey made by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. The town features the recent Orthodox Cathedral of the Life-Giving Trinity (completed in 2008), and the Roman Catholic Church of the Nativity (completed in 2002), among others. …