October 21, 1976 -- Siberia, Soviet Union,

The year 1976 comes into the world. The world has been in a stalemate from tensions between the Capitalist West and Communist East with their major players, the United States and the Soviet Union. The threat of nuclear war looms on both sides as even if they have the advantages, the consequences of such war will be the end of humanity.

It first victims of a nuclear war against the Americans and Soviets is the entire European Continent. They rose from the ashes and ruins of World War 2 in different forms of government and economic power. The continent is divided by an "Iron Curtain" between the West and the East.

After the establishment of NATO in 1949 by the West, the Soviet Union, under Soviet Ruler and Dictator Joseph Stalin, established the Warsaw Pact to counter the Western Nations and all of NATO.

After Stalin's death, the new leader of the USSR was Nikita Khrushchev. Around the 1960s, an event nearly changed the course of history and mankind. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, during which the United States discovered Soviet Nuclear Missiles in Cuba, The range of those nuclear missiles is close enough to destroy the entire nation of America if there isn't a way to stop it from escalating into a nuclear war. It took nearly 2 weeks around October to stop the firing of nuclear missiles from Cuba.

After a deal was made that American nuclear missiles from Turkey would be removed in exchange for Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba, After that, the entire world sighed in relief, except for the Communist Leader of Cuba, who is angered that it all failed.

A few years have passed since that near-end event, when the Soviet Union exchanged leaders after Nikita Khrushchev resigned and died. The Soviet Union has changed ever since Stalin's regime and rule ended with him.

 The Soviet Union still continues to rule but a slow decline was beginning to set.

Since Stalin's death and Nikita Khrushchev's political reform and movement which was "De-Stalinization", a huge process and time for the Soviet Union's change, closing down several gulags and freeing gulag prisoners.

Whilst most of the gulags in the Soviet Union have been closed down for good, some still remains, lurking behind the scenes for most of the public in the entire Soviet Union and its other Soviet Republics.

There is one in particular.

Located in the Soviet region of Ural was a Soviet forced labor colony located near the village of Kuchino, Perm. Since 1972 the camp (Perm-36) was designated a "strict regime" and "special regime" (строгого режима, особого режима) camp used exclusively for the incarceration of "especially dangerous state criminals", mostly Soviet dissidents.

The gulag was 112 kilometers away from the nearest railway station that belonged to the Trans-Siberian Railway (Main Train Station | Perm 2), the longest railway in the world.

In was a cold night in the Soviet Union, especially in its Ural Region. Snow have filled the entire region to which everything fell silent and frozen. A few lights were illuminated but not from the outskirts of the region. The stars can only illuminate the night sky with clouds of snow floating by to block the beautiful night sky. The only place to escape such a hellhole which is the gulag.

The only sound that can be heard from the cold snow of white night is the low howling of Soviet wind carrying the snow along with it. There is no Christmas nor a game of snowball fighting or snowmans from the village and the gulag itself.

Then a low hung can be heard, with the sound of boots stepping on soft and hard snow. It seems a tune was playing even in the coldest of night.

https://youtu.be/XaZNs4wPHQw

A few words that translates from Russian to other Soviet Republics can be heard echoing through the cold night in the Ural Region of the Soviet Union.

At the glossy image of ice, a figure looms as it stands to which carries...

A saw?

Several sharp saws came along with other sharp materials that can cut through ice.

It is then revealed that this was no ordinary group of ice-pickers, those are from a far long era of civilization. It was a group of gulag prisoners from Perm-36 which are ordered to get ice for the purpose of the Soviet State in their capitals mainly in St. Petersburg and Moscow.

The reason was due to the resources of ice that is low within the Baltic Sea. The Ural Region and Perm itself has several clean and calm rivers and lakes that can be used to help filling the resources for ice in the western part of the Soviet Union. The other reason, was just to give the Soviet dissidents some harsh labour to satisfy their own needs of no care at all.

All of them sing in calm but sorrow tone.

Only the hum, the wind, and the sound of ice ripping are the only ones accompanying the music of their sad tune.

https://youtu.be/75P0QGi3RO0

All men came with their equipment as they do their job, cutting the ice, moving the ice, and put them in large cargo sleds. The same process over and over again, in unison. Like soldiers fighting for their country.

All of them said their words of distaste and hate towards the Soviet Union whilst others say positive due to the gulag guards watching over them. It is a crime to show hate and opinion to the Soviet Union.

As they all carried the ice block to their cargo sleds. One by one, piling up until it was ready to be delivered to the Main Railway Station at Perm.

The men lit up their lamps, cutting a few more  ice blocks to push more into the sled as ordered by their gulag guards. 

With the last ice block now placed on the last cargo sled, the gulag guards ordered for the full 100 km delivery of the ice to the Trans-Siberian Railway. At the station the freight train awaits the delivery of the ice at around 30-35 minutes sharp.

The men immediately went on to deliver the ice in the harsh conditions of the frozen winds and the dark night in the Ural Region.

Leaving behind the frozen river, all men groaned and wailed in pain and they're tired from the harsh labor as they're accompained by the gulag guards riding their motorbikes and military vehicles.

Some looked at the night sky covered in dark clouds and stars that illuminated it.

Indeed...

One of the prisoners said,

Just one of those days...

A Cold and Howling Night in the Soviet Motherland.