Nyrob is the northernmost town in the Perm Krai where some kind of civilization and roads can still be found.

Further north it is just wilderness, prisons, tree cutting and more wilderness.

Some of the prisons are still operational, and the one described in this post was abandoned in 2005.

Today, the wind is blowing in here, the plaster is falling off, and the road is only travelable in winter if it is cleared.

The village next to the prison is also abandoned, just like many others in this region.

This post is recommended to those with bad living conditions to cheer them up.

We look inside the first building on the road that is still on the “free ground”. It probably used to be occupied by the Federal Penitentiary Service employees.

Now there is just ruin, a life saver and a poster cut up with a knife.

This ZIL truck isn’t going anywhere anymore, and probably won’t even be granted the honor of being recycled as scrap metal.

We pass a few protective strips. Some of them can only be noticed when you see the remains of barbed wire and woodboards from the fence under the snow.



We pass the final frontier and come to one of the barracks

The interiors are quite romantic. If tourists ever came to these places, it could be turned into a very unusual hotel.

The cells are either individual or for four people

A deluxe suite with a furnace

As it is supposed to be, there is central heating everywhere





Ruins of a barrack

A motto to cheer you up: “it is not enough to just admit your guilt”.

A reading room

A watchtower – the only one of them that is almost intact. However, it creaks and wobbles so much that climbing up seems really scary

Arms rooms

The exercise ground

The office block

Prisoners’ registration cards are scattered on the floor

While we were exploring the prison, a Niva car driven by one of the locals broke down on the road – the drive shaft fell off. In order to cheer the driver up we offered him some useful advice and a bottle of honey and pepper Nemiroff vodka.

He, in his turn, told us that there were no humans in these places, but plenty of fish and game.

As a result of our conversation, we came to a conclusion that it’s better to look at windows of this kind from the outside, and the rest will sort itself out.

Images by Leonid Varlamov, reproduced with permission