A lagpunkt (Russian: Отдельный лагерный пункт, лагерный пункт, лагпункт), literally "camp point", may be translated as "subcamp" or "camp site" was a separate settlement subordinated to a major Gulag forced labor camp. Lagpunkts were convenient to decrease the time and hassle of transport of inmates to remote job sites.[1] At the same time this remoteness created difficulties for the delivery of food supplies, especially in winter.[2]
Anne Appelbaum in her Gulag: A History occasionally translates the term as "base camp", along with using the Russian term.[2] Other authors use the term "base camp" for the main location of the camp.[3]
Many camps, especially operating logging had big number of lagpunkts to man work in a particular areas. Some of them did not have a name, only number and housed about a 100 of inmates.[4][5] In general, lagpunkts were of varying sizes: from several dozen to several thousand inmates. Their lifetime also varied greatly: some existed from 1920s into 1980s (when were converted into prisons or colonies), while others lasted for a summer season only or, keeping the number, moved to another location.[2]
Anne Appelbaum remarks that most descriptions of Gulag geography report about 500 locations, but in fact there was much more than that: many major camps had from dozens to hundreds smaller sub-units, which are close to impossible to count.[2]
There were other terms for temporary job locations of labor camp: kolonna ("column", in reference of "worker columns' of a labor army) a lagpunkt for road construction; komandirovka (work trip; modern translation of the term: business trip); distantsiya ("distance"), for railroad construction camp detachments.[1]