compound, releasing 77 of its inmates. The commissars from Moscow remained in Vorkuta, planning their response. The inmates demanded lower production targets, wages and to be allowed to write more than two letters a year. Concessions were made, including being allowed to write more than two letters a year and to be allowed one visitor a year but the inmates demanded more. On July 31 camp chief Derevyanko started mass arrests of "saboteurs"; inmates responded with barricades. The next day, on August 1, after further bloodless clashes between inmates and guards, Derevyanko ordered direct fire at the mob resulting in the deaths of at least 53 workers and injuring 135 (many of them, deprived of medical help, died later) although estimates vary. According to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, there were 66 killed. Among those shot was the Latvian Catholic priest Jānis Mendriks. Closing of Vorkuta, 1962 The Vorkuta camp was liquidated by order of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs and eventually closed in 1962, the closure of GULAGS started when Nikita Khrushchev came into power, Khrushchev started a series of reforms known as De-Stalinization which caused the closure of most GULAGS. About 2 Million Prisoners had gone to Vorkutlag from 1932 until the closure in 1962, the amount of deaths in the camp were estimated to be 200,000. Most prisoners were released after the closure of Vorkuta but Large numbers of Soviet citizens who were former prisoners remained living in Vorkuta, either due to the restrictions on their settlement or their poor financial situation, or having nowhere to go. Memorial, a Russian human rights organization that focuses on recording and publicising the human rights violations of the Soviet Union's totalitarianism, estimates that of the 40,000 people collecting state pensions in the Vorkuta area, 32,000 are former gulag inmates or their descendants. Location Vorkuta GULAG was located in the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union. It was 160 km above the arctic circle and roughly 50 km from the Ural mountain range. since the camp was located in the very northern part of Russia, the harsh climate was hard to endure. Vorkuta was extremely cold with average temperatures from the Winter to summer being -25 °C (-13 °F) to -13 °C (8.6 °F) and reaching as low as −52 °C (−61 °F). Midnight sun or "Polar Days" was common in Vorkuta where the sun