Susuman () is a town and the administrative center of Susumansky District in Magadan Oblast, Russia, located on the Byoryolyokh River, northwest of Magadan, the administrative center of the oblast. Population:
Geography
The town lies in the Upper Kolyma region near where the
Susuman River joins the Byoryolyokh.
[ Верхнеколымское нагорье] The town sits on the M56 Kolyma Highway, an unsealed track often known as the "Road of Bones", which connects
Yakutsk with
Magadan.
History
It was founded in 1936 as a settlement of a
sovkhoz called
Susuman, named after the nearby river of the same name. In 1938, the settlement was greatly expanded to become a center of
gold mining in the western part of what is now Magadan Oblast under the control of
Dalstroy.
Gold mining and other industrial operations in the region were largely reliant on corrective labor camps of the Gulag system, with a large number operating in Susuman's vicinity. From 1949 until 1956, Susuman was the base for one of the Soviet Union's largest corrective labor camps, the Zaplag of the Dalstroy program. During this time, up to 16,500 prisoners were kept in the camps.
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Susuman was granted town status in 1964. In the post-Soviet period, the population dropped significantly, from a high of around 18,000 inhabitants in 1991, down to 4,439 as of the 2021 Census.
Climate
Susuman has an extreme dry-winter subarctic climate (Köppen climate classification
Dwd/Dwc) with extremely cold, dry winters and short, very mild summers. It is one of the coldest permanently inhabited settlements in the world, with a yearly mean temperature of . All 12 months have experienced a frost, and above-freezing temperatures during December, January, and February are unheard of.
Administrative and municipal status
Within the framework of administrative divisions, Susuman serves as the administrative center of Susumansky District, to which it is directly subordinated.
[Law #1292-OZ] As a municipal division, the town of Susuman is incorporated within Susumansky Municipal District as
Susuman Urban Settlement.
[Law #512-OZ]
Economy
The town's economy relies mainly on its status as one of the centers of gold mining in the Kolyma region.
Transportation
The town is served by the
Susuman Airport, with four flights a week from
Sokol Airport.
Documentary
Susuman and its nearby
Dalstroy goldmine is portrayed in the prizewinning documentary on the Gulag in the far east of Siberia
GOLD Lost in Siberia (VPRO/The Netherlands 1994) YouTube:
[2] www.imdb.com
[3] by a Dutch filmteam, led by author
Gerard Jacobs and filmmaker Theo Uittenbogaard
Notes
Sources
External links
-
Official website of Susuman
-
Unofficial website of Susuman
-
Documentary *** GOLD*** - lost in Siberia [6] by Gerard Jacobs and Theo Uittenbogaard (VPRO/The Netherlands/1994) was filmed in the summer of 1993 in Magadan, along the Road of Bones, through Ust-Umshug and Susuman and at the Sverovostok Zoloto gold mine, Siberia, by the first foreign film crew ever, visiting the Kolyma District -which had been under control of the Soviet secret service, under the company name Dalstroj, for over 60 years.
