The exact number of prisoners who went through the camp during 1923-1939 is still unknown.
Estimates range between tens and hundreds of thousands.
Solovki is a symbol of the new system's attitude to religion and tradition. A wave of repression of a scale never seen before brought hundreds of thousands arrested people to camps, where their destination is to become a work-force performing economic tasks. At the end of 1936 the Solovetsk camp was reorganized into a prison and then shut down in 1939 to make way for a naval base. The devastation of church buildings continued well into the 1960s, when restoration work was initiated. The influx of military families and conservators brought new life to the islands.