White Sea–Baltic Canal in the context of "Ship canal"

A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especially prison farms). Conditions at labor camps vary widely depending on the operators. Convention no. 105 of the United Nations International Labour Organization (ILO), adopted internationally on 27 June 1957, intended to abolish camps of forced labor.

In the 20th century, a new category of labor camps developed for the imprisonment of millions of people who were not criminals per se, but political opponents (real or imagined) and various so-called undesirables under communist and fascist regimes.

The White Sea (Russian: Белое море, romanized: Beloye more; Karelian and Finnish: Vienanmeri, lit. 'Dvina Sea'; Nenets: Сэрако ямʼ, romanized: Serako yam) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of the internal waters of Russia. Administratively, it is divided between the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk oblasts and the Republic of Karelia.

The major port of Arkhangelsk is located on the White Sea. For much of Russia's history this was Russia's main centre of international maritime trade, conducted by the Pomors ("seaside settlers") from Kholmogory. In the modern era it became an important Soviet naval and submarine base. The White Sea–Baltic Canal connects the White Sea with the Baltic Sea.

The Neva (/ˈniːvə/ NEE-və, UK also /ˈneɪvə/ NAY-və; Russian: Нева́, IPA: [nʲɪˈva] ) is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast (historical region of Ingria) to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length of 74 kilometres (46 mi), it is the fourth-largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge (after the Volga, the Danube and the Rhine).

The Neva is the only river flowing from Lake Ladoga. It flows through the city of Saint Petersburg, the three smaller towns of Shlisselburg, Kirovsk and Otradnoye, and dozens of settlements. It is navigable throughout and is part of the Volga–Baltic Waterway and White Sea–Baltic Canal. It is the site of many major historical events, including the Battle of the Neva in 1240 which gave Alexander Nevsky his name, the founding of Saint Petersburg in 1703, and the Siege of Leningrad by the German army during World War II. The river played a vital role in trade between Byzantium and Scandinavia.

Genrikh Grigoryevich Yagoda (Russian: Ге́нрих Григо́рьевич Яго́да, romanized: Genrikh Grigor'yevich Yagoda, born Yenokh Gershevich Iyeguda; 7 November 1891 – 15 March 1938) was a Soviet secret police official who served as director of the NKVD, the Soviet Union's security and intelligence agency, from 1934 to 1936. Appointed by Joseph Stalin, Yagoda supervised arrests, show trials, and executions of the Old Bolsheviks Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev, climactic events of the Great Purge. Yagoda also supervised the construction of the White Sea–Baltic Canal with Naftaly Frenkel, using penal labor from the gulag system, during which 12,000–25,000 laborers died.

Like many NKVD officers who oversaw political repression under Stalin's rule, Yagoda himself ultimately became a victim of the regime's purges. He was demoted from the directorship of the NKVD in favor of Nikolai Yezhov in 1936 and arrested in 1937. Charged with crimes of wrecking, espionage, Trotskyism and conspiracy, Yagoda was a defendant at the Trial of the Twenty-One, the last of the major Soviet show trials of the 1930s. Following his confession at the trial, Yagoda was found guilty and shot.