Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A secret research and development laboratory in the Soviet gulag.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Russian шарашка (šaráška) or шаражка (šarážka), a diminutive for шарага (šarága).

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Examples

  • I among them, would have been left in "sharashkas" later described by Solzhenitsyn and others (a "sharashka" is in fact a prison were scientific and technical research was conducted).

    Vitaly L. Ginzburg - Autobiography 2004

  • Ease My Sorrows, he familiarizes us with substantial chapters of his autobiography, including the years spent in the so-called sharashka, the prison of scientists.

    Chinalyst - China blogs in English 2009

  • Nerzhin refuses to work on the voice identification technology, knowing he will be expelled from the sharashka and transferred back into the Gulag proper.

    Alan Elsner: Solzhenitsyn's Great Masterwork 2010

  • The prisoners of the sharashka may be in their own version of hell -- but in fact the country has been turned into a kind of penal colony.

    Alan Elsner: Solzhenitsyn's Great Masterwork 2010

  • Enter the prisoner-scientists of the sharashka, some of whom are working on voice identification technology.

    Alan Elsner: Solzhenitsyn's Great Masterwork 2010

  • The prisoners, or zeks, in the sharashka have it easier than in other Soviet camps -- they have enough to eat, warm, dry clothes, comfortable beds and access to work materials.

    Alan Elsner: Solzhenitsyn's Great Masterwork 2010

  • The Russian slang word for such a prison research institute is "sharashka."

    Alan Elsner: Solzhenitsyn's Great Masterwork 2010

  • It was a slang term related to the Russian word “sharashka” — “a special scientific or technical institute staffed with prisoners” — the prisoners of these Soviet labor camps were called zeks.

    Ilium Simmons, Dan 1981

  • In fact, he was now in a sharashka, an advanced lab and design shop within the Gulag system, and worked alongside such famous figures as the aircraft designer, Tupolev and Korolyov, father of the

    CounterPunch 2010

  • In fact, he was now in a sharashka, an advanced lab and design shop within the Gulag system, and worked alongside such famous figures as the aircraft designer, Tupolev and Korolyov, father of the

    CounterPunch 2010

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