“Like a piece of rotten meat which not only stinks right on its own surface but also surrounds itself with a stinking molecular cloud of stink, so, too, each island of the archipelago created and supported a zone of stink around itself. This zone, more extensive than the Archipelago itself, was the intermediate transmission zone between the small zone of each individual island and the Big Zone—the Big Camp Compound—comprising the entire country.” Soviet UnionStinkContagion1974Prison LaborCampside Book:The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books III-IV Source: The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books III-IV