“Essays on the Underworld” by Varlam Shalamov is a terrible and impartial testimony to the morals and customs of the Soviet forced labor camps that engulfed the country in the middle of the last century. Shalamov, who spent almost twenty years in exile and camps, wrote: “... the camp is a negative school from the first to the last day for anyone. The person - neither the boss nor the prisoner - does not need to see him. But if you saw him, you must tell the truth, no matter how terrible it may be. For my part, I decided long ago that I would devote the rest of my life to this truth.”