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Vodka, cognac and dancing... why did Russia throw a party to celebrate 75th anniversary of a GULAG?

Staff watched children's performances, enjoyed a buffet and listened to speeches as they toasted to the 75th anniversary of one of Russia's most notorious Gulag camps.

The bizarre party to celebrate the founding of a forced labour camp and attended by local officials and former guards gave little indication to the horrors of its past.

Usol'Lag camp in Solikamsk, near the Ural mountains, held both criminal and political prisoners during the Soviet years and was set up during the early Stalinist purges aimed to clean the communist union of those with undesirable political opinions.