FKU IK-3, Kharp

. The city of Kharp was built by Gulag prisoners during the Stalin era. The colony was founded on 21 August 1961 on the former camp unit of the 501st Gulag construction site. It was initially known as "YATs-34/3". In 1964, the first residential buildings for convicts, a medical unit, a boiler room, a bathhouse, a laundry, a dormitory for the colony-settlement section, and a central checkpoint building were built. From 1966 to July 1970, the convicts worked in quarries, loading sand and gravel for filling the railway track. In 1964, the first permanent building was built in the village. In 1966, a canteen, then buildings, a headquarters building and a fire station were built. The first batch of especially dangerous convicted repeat offenders On 23 February 2024, the US government placed sanctions on three individuals: Colonel Vadim Konstantinovich Kalinin, warden of Penal Colony IK-3; Igor Borisovich Rakitin, Yamalo-Nenets regional head of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia; and Valeriy Gennadevich Boyarinev, Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia, who had oversight of Penal Colony IK-3 at the time of Alexei Navalny's death. Boyarinev was subsequently promoted to Colonel General by Vladimir Putin. == Conditions ==

Living accommodations The conditions at Polar Wolf are known to be some of the worst in the Russian Federal Penitentiary System. Prisoners described "unbearable cold, repulsive food, unsanitary conditions and constant beatings". The worst part of the prison was the freezing nights. Prisoners reported that the prison had no central heat and instead relied on small radiators located on the floor. In some cases, cells had no radiators and only had radiators painted on the wall. Punishment Cells The prison reportedly has one to two dozen punishment/solitary confinement cells. Prominent Russian opposition figure and political prisoner Alexei Navalny spent up to 27 nights in a punishment cell with no access to the outside world. Psychological impact According to prisoners, Polar Wolf was "a system devised to break the human spirit, by making survival depend on total and unconditional obedience to the will of guards". The prison authorities relied on a system of informants, triggering paranoia and anxiety and making prisoners unable to trust anyone or have meaningful social interaction. One prisoner said "There is no sense of community" which typically keeps prisoners going in Russian prisons. Several former prisoners interviewed by The New York Times said they still struggled with mental illness years after release. ==Notable prisoners==

• Platon Lebedev served 8 years in IK-3 in the Yukos case. ==See also==