Known for harsh and prolonged winters, Siberia is a large but sparsely populated region in Russia. For centuries, Russian and Soviet governments have used the region as the site of prison labor camps and a place of exile for political dissidents.
Reasons for exile to Siberia have included both high treason and petty crimes. Famous Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky was punished for participating in clandestine political organizing and made to spend four years in a Siberian prison camp; his imprisonment was followed by six years of compulsory military service in exile.
While some wealthy families established comfortable living standards for themselves in exile, many exiled people lived in extreme poverty and squalid conditions. Photographs exist of convicts who were branded and scarred. The barbaric practices in Siberia under Russian tsars (emperors) were replaced by the Soviet system of political labor camps known as the Gulag system.
While Siberia encompasses seventy percent of Russia's land area, less than a quarter of the country's residents live there. With a population of three people per square kilometer, Siberia is one of the least-densely populated areas of human inhabitation in the world.
