Russia has a lowest ever temperature of –44∘C, and an average of 104 days a year above 0∘C and a yearly average of 261 days below 0 ∘C. It is the second coldest continent in the world only behind Antarctica; it snows on average 111 days of the year. It is dark, gloomy, freezing and miserable in the winter, and in the summer, cold, dark, and gloomy. Camps for political prisoners seemed even colder, especially with no real heating and limited clothes to wear on these wintry days.
             The work camp, which was the bases of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel A Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, was initiated by Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1953 until 1956. Stalin, which means "man of steel", constructed one of the tightest and toughest communisms in history. He was a dominant figure in Russian history, even though he will always be remembered as heavily contributing to the downfall of communist Russia at the time.
             This was no general camp, but a so-called "special" camp for long term prisoners. Shukhov was a political prisoner, in fact not one of these prisoners were common criminals. Stalin had established many camps like this, full of spies, prisoners of war, and those who rebelled against his system of government. The camps were in poor condition, the government spent as little money, time, and effort on them as possible, and all the repairs and construction of new buildings was all done by hand thanks to the prisoners of the camp.
             The primary theme in this Nobel Prize winning novel is the endurance of ones humanity and the fight for survival under cruel treatment and in an even crueler environment. Survival is a fight every human must take part in, although ones fight for survival might be a bit easier than another persons fight for survival. The fight for survival is tough in the camp especially under the severe conditions, such as the harsh cold weather with temperatures...