Imprisonment

During Stalin's purge on June 22, 1938, Korolev was given a 10 year sentence (along with other scientists) and sent to Siberia for allegedly denouncing the NKVD (15)(27). Korolev endured the months-long transportation (12) to Siberia, travelling 9,905 km on a train to get to his first destination: a small town called Magadan (24). From here Korolev was transported to a gold mine in Kolyma (12). Before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin wanted rockets to be developed to prepare for a war, so he transferred Korolev and other rocket engineers to work (while still technically arrested) on rocket technology (12). Korolev continued to work in the prison until he was paroled by Stalin on July 27, 1944 (16). When the second world war ended, Korolev was released from prison (26). But the scars that Korolev had obtained during his short time at Kolyma would stay with him for the rest of his life. Korolev was one of the few survivors of the Kolyma gulag, breaking the barrier of emotional trauma and surviving the gulag.