Soviet Union. The Solovki Islands GULag, the first one, built in 1923 with three thousand prisoners, already had 50,000 inmates by 1930. But by 1928, the Solovki cancer had metastasized and spread throughout the Soviet Union, first to Karelia, and then especially to Siberia. There would eventually be over three hundred inmates, including KotLag, BelBaltLag, SevDvinLag, SolikamLag, SevUralLag, EchtLag, UchtPecLag, SevZerDorLag, and PecorLag, for a total of 253,000 hectares in Russia and 56,000 in Ukraine.
