Diesel locomotives TEP70 in the locomotive depot Kotlas Yuzhny. Kotlas is a town in Arkhangelsk Oblast, located at the confluence of the Northern Dvina and Vychegda Rivers. During the 1930s, Kotlas became a place to which peasants were deported and made to work in the forestry industry. It was managed by the Kotlaslag division of Gulag. Later, it hosted all possible categories of people repressed during the Stalin era. A significant population of Poles existed in the area, with whole Polish villages resettled here in 1920s and 1930s. Labor camps existed within the territory of the city until 1953. Besides logging and the paper industry, inmates worked at plant, housing, bridge, and railroad construction. Most of camps were unguarded barrack settlements. In addition, Kotlas was a major transit point for deportees transferred further to the north and east, since it was a railroad terminus.
