[Rhinestone Pseudo-Commie]

Was the so-called "Gulag Archapeligo" really on islands, or were they just dotted across Siberia and given such a nickname?

[Maxim Litvinov]

The first 'base' of the so-called Gulag Archipelago was on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea. But the term 'archipelago' actually refers to the fact that Gulags were established all around the Soviet Union as effective 'islands' separated from each other and the non-Gulag world. What Solzhenitsyn refers to as the 'Gulag Archipelago' includes facilities from the White Sea to the Atlantic, and right into the scientific camps in central Moscow (read 'First Circle', for instance). So, they weren't even 'just in Siberia'.

But to repeat - no, they weren't 'real' islands.