Nazino: Stalin’s Cannibal Island of Despair

The Nazino tragedy led to the location becoming known as Cannibal Island. Source: Nito / Adobe Stock.

During Josef Stalin’s time as the leader of the Soviet Union, from 1928 -1953, there were many “internal exiles”. These exiles created camps known as forced settlements across Siberia. People would be deported to uninhabited land in Siberia based on their social class, nationality, and sometimes to clear up some space in prisons and gulags.

These forced settlements sounded better than gulag labor camps; people could live with families once deported and move about the settlement more freely than in a gulag. However, the people deported were seen as second-class citizens and were barred from working in certain professions.

They were not permitted to return to where they were from or attend any of the prestigious universities in Russia. The environments these forced settlements were established in were brutal, and the conditions of the Siberian taiga made survival difficult.

One of these forced settlements was established on a deserted island in northwestern Siberia and collapsed into chaos shortly after the settlers were dropped off. More than just the freezing temperatures, the lack of preparation and extremely isolation doomed the deportees almost as soon as they were dropped off on Nazino Island.

A lack of resources resulted in the formation of violent gangs, murders, widespread illness, deaths, and, in the desperation of the men and women trapped there, cannibalism. How did it come to pass that in only 13 weeks, Nazino Island became known as Death Island or Cannibal Island and saw the deaths of thousands of people?