Sharashka
Encyclopedia
Sharashka was an informal name for secret research and development
laboratories in the Soviet
Gulag
labor camp
system. Etymologically, the word sharashka is derived from a Russian slang
expression sharashkina kontora ("Sharashka's office", possibly from the radical meaning "to beat about"), an ironic, derogatory term to denote a poorly organized, impromptu, or bluffing organization. Official name was ОКБ that is Опытное конструкторское бюро that can be translated as "Experimental Design Bureau".
The scientists and engineers at a sharashka were prisoners picked from various camps and prisons and assigned to work on scientific and technological problems for the state. Living conditions were usually much better than in an average taiga
camp, especially bearing in mind the absence of hard labor.
The results of the research in sharashkas were usually published under the names of prominent Soviet scientists without credit given to the real authors, whose names frequently have been forgotten. Some of the brilliant scientists and engineers imprisoned in sharashkas were released during and after World War II
, continuing independent careers and becoming world-famous, such as Léon Theremin
.
and other engineers sentenced in the Industrial Party Trial
were formed into a special design bureau under State Political Directorate
(GPU), which was then the Soviet secret police
.
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 leadership of General
Valentin Kravchenko, under 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 sharaskas significantly increased. Previously the work done there was of military and defense
character. The MVD Order № 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 Union
".
The 4th Special Department was disbanded in 1953 when, shortly after Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev
had Beria arrested for espionage and executed.
slang word meaning "College
" or "University
".
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
laboratories in the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
labor camp
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
system. Etymologically, the word sharashka is derived from a Russian slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
expression sharashkina kontora ("Sharashka's office", possibly from the radical meaning "to beat about"), an ironic, derogatory term to denote a poorly organized, impromptu, or bluffing organization. Official name was ОКБ that is Опытное конструкторское бюро that can be translated as "Experimental Design Bureau".
The scientists and engineers at a sharashka were prisoners picked from various camps and prisons and assigned to work on scientific and technological problems for the state. Living conditions were usually much better than in an average taiga
Taiga
Taiga , also known as the boreal forest, is a biome characterized by coniferous forests.Taiga is the world's largest terrestrial biome. In North America it covers most of inland Canada and Alaska as well as parts of the extreme northern continental United States and is known as the Northwoods...
camp, especially bearing in mind the absence of hard labor.
The results of the research in sharashkas were usually published under the names of prominent Soviet scientists without credit given to the real authors, whose names frequently have been forgotten. Some of the brilliant scientists and engineers imprisoned in sharashkas were released during and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, continuing independent careers and becoming world-famous, such as Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin
Léon Theremin was a Russian and Soviet inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments. He is also the inventor of interlace, a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal, widely used in video and television technology...
.
History
In 1934 Leonid RamzinLeonid Ramzin
Leonid Konstantinovich Ramzin was a Soviet thermal engineer, and the inventor of a type of flow-through boiler known as the straight-flow boiler, or Ramzin boiler...
and other engineers sentenced in the Industrial Party Trial
Industrial Party Trial
The Industrial Party Trial was a show trial in which several Soviet scientists and economists were accused and convicted of plotting a coup against the government of the Soviet Union....
were formed into a special design bureau under State Political Directorate
State Political Directorate
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
(GPU), which was then the Soviet secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....
.
In 1938, Lavrenty Beria, a senior NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
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 leadership of General
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
Valentin Kravchenko, under Beria's
Lavrentiy Beria
Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria was a Georgian Soviet politician and state security administrator, chief of the Soviet security and secret police apparatus under Joseph Stalin during World War II, and Deputy Premier in the postwar years ....
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 sharaskas significantly increased. Previously the work done there was of military and defense
Military history of the Soviet Union
The military history of the Soviet Union began in the days following the 1917 October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power. The new government formed the Red Army to fight various enemies in the Russian Civil War. The years 1918-1921 saw Red Army's defeats in Polish-Soviet war and...
character. The MVD Order № 001020 dated November 9, 1949 decreed installation of "Special technical and design bureaus" for a wide variety of "civilian" research and development
Research and development
The phrase research and development , according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, refers to "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of man, culture and society, and the use of this stock of...
, particularly in the "remote areas of the Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
".
The 4th Special Department was disbanded in 1953 when, shortly after Stalin's death, Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
had Beria arrested for espionage and executed.
Notable sharashka inmates
- Aleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr SolzhenitsynAleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was aRussian and Soviet novelist, dramatist, and historian. Through his often-suppressed writings, he helped to raise global awareness of the Gulag, the Soviet Union's forced labor camp system – particularly in The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of...
, a writer. His novel The First CircleThe First CircleIn the First Circle is a novel by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn released in 1968. A fuller version of the book was published in English in 2009....
is a vivid account of life in sharashka Marfino. - Lev KopelevLev KopelevLev Zalmanovich Kopelev was a Soviet author and a dissident.- Biography :...
, a writer, another inmate of Marfino (a prototype for Rubin from The First Circle) - Sergey KorolyovSergey KorolyovSergei Pavlovich Korolev ; died 14 January 1966 in Moscow, Russia) was the lead Soviet rocket engineer and spacecraft designer in the Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the 1950s and 1960s...
, an aircraft and rocket designer, later the chief designer for the Soviet space program. - Valentin GlushkoValentin GlushkoValentin Petrovich Glushko or Valentyn Petrovych Hlushko was a Soviet engineer, and the principal Soviet designer of rocket engines during the Soviet/American Space Race.-Biography:...
, a chief rocket engine designer. (His biography at MN) - Andrei TupolevAndrei TupolevAndrei Nikolayevich Tupolev was a pioneering Soviet aircraft designer.During his career, he designed and oversaw the design of more than 100 types of aircraft, some of which set 78 world records...
, the chief designer of the aircraft families Tu and ANTTupolevTupolev is a Russian aerospace and defence company, headquartered in Basmanny District, Central Administrative Okrug, Moscow. Known officially as Public Stock Company Tupolev, it is the successor of the Tupolev OKB or Tupolev Design Bureau headed by the Soviet aerospace engineer A.N. Tupolev...
. - Vladimir PetlyakovVladimir PetlyakovVladimir Mikhailovich Petlyakov was a Soviet aeronautical engineer.Petlyakov was born in Sambek in 1891 , where his father was a local official...
, the chief designer of the aircraft families Pe and VIPetlyakovV.M. Petlyakov Design Bureau for military aircraft, headed by designer Vladimir Petlyakov. Following his death in 1942, the bureau was controlled by Izakson, Putliov, and Myasishchyev before being dissolved in 1946.-Developments:*Pe-2 'Buck'/PB-100, 1941....
(The Petlyakov aircraft). - Vladimir MyasishchevVladimir Mikhailovich MyasishchevVladimir Mikhailovich Myasishchev was a Soviet aircraft designer, Major General of Engineering , Hero of Socialist Labor , Doctor of Technical Sciences , Honored Science Worker of the RSFSR ....
, an aircraft designer. - Leonid Kerber, an aircraft designer.
- Robert Ludvigovich BartiniRobert Ludvigovich BartiniRobert Ludvigovich was a Russian aircraft designer and scientist. Active mostly in Soviet Union, he was named, because of his noble descent "Red Baron".- Personal life/history :...
(or Roberto Oros di Bartini) an aircraft designer and scientist. - Helmut GröttrupHelmut GröttrupHelmut Gröttrup was a German electrical engineer and assistant of Wernher von Braun in the V-2 rocket-project. Gröttrup was responsible for the guidance system....
, a GermanGermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
rocket scientist from the PeenemündePeenemündeThe Peenemünde Army Research Center was founded in 1937 as one of five military proving grounds under the Army Weapons Office ....
laboratory. (Its head Wernher von BraunWernher von BraunWernher Magnus Maximilian, Freiherr von Braun was a German rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, space architect, and one of the leading figures in the development of rocket technology in Nazi Germany during World War II and in the United States after that.A former member of the Nazi party,...
was acquired by the US). - Nikolai Nikolaevich PolikarpovNikolai Nikolaevich PolikarpovNikolai Nikolaevich Polikarpov was a Soviet aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer, known as "King of Fighters". He designed the I-15 series of fighters, and the I-16 Ishak "Little Donkey" fighter....
, an aircraft designer (arrested for a brief period). - Léon ThereminLéon ThereminLéon Theremin was a Russian and Soviet inventor. He is most famous for his invention of the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments. He is also the inventor of interlace, a technique of improving the picture quality of a video signal, widely used in video and television technology...
, a pioneer of electronic music, the inventor of the thereminThereminThe theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...
and a passive eavesdropping deviceThing (listening device)The Thing, also known as the Great Seal bug, was one of the first covert listening devices to use passive techniques to transmit an audio signal...
. - Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky, a geneticist and radiobiologist (His biography at genetics.org).
- Leonid RamzinLeonid RamzinLeonid Konstantinovich Ramzin was a Soviet thermal engineer, and the inventor of a type of flow-through boiler known as the straight-flow boiler, or Ramzin boiler...
, the inventor of the straight-flow boiler (The Industrial Party affair, His biography in Russian). - Yuri KondratyukYuri KondratyukYuri Vasilievich Kondratyuk , was a follower, supporter and founder of cosmism, pioneer of astronautics and spaceflight. He was a theoretician and a visionary who, in the early twentieth century, foresaw ways of reaching the moon...
, a pioneer of astronauticsAstronauticsAstronautics, and related astronautical engineering, is the theory and practice of navigation beyond the Earth's atmosphere. In other words, it is the science and technology of space flight....
and spaceflightSpaceflightSpaceflight is the act of travelling into or through outer space. Spaceflight can occur with spacecraft which may, or may not, have humans on board. Examples of human spaceflight include the Russian Soyuz program, the U.S. Space shuttle program, as well as the ongoing International Space Station...
, the inventor of gravitational slingshotGravitational slingshotIn orbital mechanics and aerospace engineering, a gravitational slingshot, gravity assist maneuver, or swing-by is the use of the relative movement and gravity of a planet or other celestial body to alter the path and speed of a spacecraft, typically in order to save propellant, time, and expense...
.
Modern usage of the term
Currently "sharaga" is a commonly used students'Student
A student is a learner, or someone who attends an educational institution. In some nations, the English term is reserved for those who attend university, while a schoolchild under the age of eighteen is called a pupil in English...
slang word meaning "College
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
" or "University
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
".
External links
- The database of research and design establishments of the Soviet defence industry, 1927–67 by Keith Dexter, The U. of Warwick.