Near the Arctic Ocean

Is there any point in talking about the sufferings people went through and we have read about from hundreds of memoirs, books, newspaper articles, etc? It was hell, a real hell. Life was served on a table on which even the smallest wind was fatal. Only those survived who were favored by the GREAT CHANCE, which included toughness, health, wisdom and several other personal traits.

Harald Nugiseks was in Obskaja near the mouth of the Ob River during the ten years of his imprisonment. When he got off the train in September with his fellow prisoners, it appeared that Obskaja is simply a place that was called a village in the middle of tundra and there were no buildings. The prisoners had to built a railway, which had to reach from Obskaja to the city of Solehard. And so they did. The job, mosquitoes and humiliation were killing them but Nugiseks showed that Estonian man will not only survive under Vaasa-Siiverts-Vepsküla. He was a member of the outstanding Estonian building brigade, which fulfilled the norms 150%. This, on the other hand, meant that the time of imprisonment decreased to 7 years. Harald Nugiseks was released on the same year when the great executioner Stalin died – in 1953.


Nugiseks lived in Lapõtlang which was near the railway that led to River Ob. There he met his first wife Selma Kimmel. Selma was deported to Siberia because she had been hiding forest brothers. The Nugiseks family soon got an apartment with three rooms. Nugiseks was a good worker and organizer and soon found a job as a brigadier. The work was going well. He even received a commendation with the photos of all "great leaders" and thank you words for helping to build socialism. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry! And then…