Most people know Sergei Korolev as the genius behind Sputnik and Gagarin, but few realize his career began in the freezing hell of the Kolyma gulag. This episode uncovers the dark history of the sharashka, or 'design bureau prisons,' where NKVD engineers were forced to work under threat of execution. We explore how Lavrentiy Beria weaponized scientific talent, forcing men like Andrei Tupolev and Korolev to design weapons that would later launch them into orbit. It is a story of survival, moral compromise, and the terrifying efficiency of the Soviet state, which turned prisoners into the architects of its greatest triumphs.
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