To be fair, Russia only gives very limited access to its state archives nowadays, and Gulag record-keeping was far from stellar. Imagine what it was like trying

To be fair, Russia only gives very limited access to its state archives nowadays, and Gulag record-keeping was far from stellar. Imagine what it was like trying to uncover the truth back when KGB and the Iron Curtain still existed, from inside the system in which many monstrous and inhuman events had really happened. Exaggerations seemed true and truth seemed exaggerated.