Death barge
Encyclopedia
Death barges were floating prisons
Prison ship
A prison ship, historically sometimes called a prison hulk, is a vessel used as a prison, often to hold convicts awaiting transportation to penal colonies. This practice was popular with the British government in the 18th and 19th centuries....

 used by both sides during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...

 in 1918-1919, primarily in the Volga basin. They were primarily used to keep potential political enemies imprisoned, rather than as an execution tool. In case of a quickly advancing hostile army, they could be quickly dragged away, or sunk in a fairway, thus both liquidating enemy sympathizers and hampering the enemy's navy navigation.

The first usage of death barges was recorded in Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl
Yaroslavl is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historical part of the city, a World Heritage Site, is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It is one of the Golden Ring cities, a group of historic cities...

 during the Eser Revolt in 1918. It is also known, that one death barge with Soviet sympathizers was hijacked by towboat under Fedor Raskolnikov
Fedor Raskolnikov
Fyodor Fyodorovich Raskolnikov , real name Fyodor Ilyin , was a Bolshevik, participant in the October Revolution, commander of Red fleets on the Caspian and the Baltic during the Russian Civil War, and later a Soviet diplomat...

.
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