Used as a type of a cold, inhospitable place, or a place of exile, banishment, or imprisonment. Also figurative.

The name of a street in Moscow used attributively and absol. to denote the headquarters of the Soviet secret police formerly sited there, and the…

In the U.S.S.R.: a prison camp in which scientists and other specialists were held in conditions thought comfortable or luxurious by others in the…

These camps and prisons collectively, both under the N.K.V.D. and subsequently; a prison camp, esp. one for political prisoners; hence transferred…