Polar Owl

Kharp was founded in 1961 during the construction of the Salekhard–Igarka Railway. The core of the new settlement was a camp for prisoners who worked on laying the railway. Subsequently, the camp was transformed into a prison for particularly dangerous recidivists. The prison received the status of a colony for life convicts in 2004.

In 2010–2012, there were reports in the media that some employees of the colony were involved in a scandal with the falsification of confession. Some unscrupulous guards were suspected of beating testimonies from prisoners with the use of physical and psychological violence. Novaya Gazeta reported 190 fake turnouts, while Izvestia reported 32 fake turnouts.[2] According to Novaya Gazeta, the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug tried to hush up the case, since high-ranking officials could be involved in it.[3]

The Polar Owl has housed numerous serial killers:

• Alexander Elistratov (born 1954) - made an unsuccessful escape attempt in 2011[4]
• Alexander Greba (born 1980)
• Yevgeny Kolesnikov (1984-2016) - killed himself at the colony[5]
• Sergey Osipenko (born 1970)
• Ivan Panchenko (born 1968)
• Alexander Pichushkin (born 1974)[6]
• Dmitry Voronenko (born 1971)
• Mikhail Alexandrovich Yudin (born 1975)
• Abdufatto Zamanov (born 1973)
• Sergey Zastynchanu (born 1979)
• Alexander Zhizhich (born 1979) - one half a killing team with his brother