Russian prison officials under fire for gulag celebration The Usolsky labour camp in Perm region in the Urals was opened by the NKVD in 1938 at the height of the Stalinist Great Terror, when hundreds of thousands of people were executed, or worked to death in labour camps. Senior prison officials and other local dignitaries gathered for a concert to mark the anniversary. "The ardent speeches of veterans and bosses, stories about military and labour achievements, plans for the future, and tears of joy and sorrow made a great impression on those present," said the regional prison service. The concert late last month was condemned by liberal media and Russian bloggers this week. "The slaughterers who trampled on tens of thousands of prisoners, including 'politicals', are not ashamed to celebrate their jubilee," wrote Ivan Davydov in a commentary for the popular lenta.ru news website. He said it was impossible to imagine Germany celebrating the foundation of Auschwitz. The founding of the Usolsky camp by the NKVD in January 1938 had "established traditions which have value even today" including "faithfulness to the Motherland," the Perm prison service said. There was no mention of the prisoners who died at the camp - which still functions as a correctional facility - during the repressions. Until 1955 many of the inmates of the camp, a timber processing plant, were innocent people repressed for their allegedly "anti-Soviet" political views or behaviour. One of its most famous inmates was Alexei Diky, an actor who played Stalin in films and who was convicted of "counter-revolutionary crimes." Sergei Yerofeyev, the deputy head of a veterans' group for prison guards, told guests at the concert that the Usolksy camp had been founded in "troubled years" but its managers had "displayed courage" to make sure it "got on in its feet and successfully fulfilled its production and social tasks."