This is the first attempt to map, systematically, the changing geography of Russia's penal institutions over an eighty-year period from the 1930s to the present day. This website is one element of a research project investigating the impact of Russia's penal geography on women's experiences of imprisonment in Russia and the challenges they face on re-entry to society after release.

The idea informing the project is that many of the problems of the contemporary Russian penal system (including high rates of recidivism, family breakdown, physical and mental health problems) may be associated with the location of penal colonies in extra-urban regions in remote parts of the country, and the distance prisoners are therefore sent to serve their sentences. The practice of expelling 'convicted offenders' (however defined at any time) to the peripheries raises important questions about the direction of change in the penal system in post-Soviet Russia.