By D.S. Baldaev, born in 1925 in Ulan-Ude, Buryatiya, Russia. He was sent to an orphanage for children of political prisoners and then, after serving in WW II, was ordered to work as a warden in Kresty prison. He drew the tattoos of criminals, which the NKVD realized was useful and let him continue. So he was sent all over the USSR to witness the scenes collected in this book. His dedication to accuracy is pretty stunning.
"Girls and women, stay away from the lesbians! Someone is waiting for you at home." This drawing would be funny, as in campy humor, like old propaganda often is, but in the context of the horrors shown on pretty much every other page, not here.
And one can imagine what it was actually like to be a lesbian in the Gulag from the rest. Koblui/butches or not.
It's amazing what lengths he went to in order to document what he had seen, without flinching, with the possible repercussions.
I hadn't realized the scientists working on cybernetics - pre-computers - in the 50s were arrested and tortured, mocked by propaganda as advocating the replacement of humans with robots.
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