Soviet Mordovian ASSR chess set.
Date of manufacture: 11.VI.1951
Fantastic 72 years old chess gift.

Board size: 36 cm.
King`s height is 96 mm.
Pawn`s height is 40 mm.

Damages: old condition, chipped collar of the red pawn, paint and varnish peel off from the figures due the passed time (mostly from the red figures), brown bishop is the same form and the similar chess piece absolutely. I can`t say or it was re-painted or it is from another similar set. See all the photos.

Such Mordovian chess sets had been producing in the Temlag of the village of Yavas.
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Temlag (Temnikovsky correctional labor camp) is a subdivision in the system of correctional labor institutions of the USSR.

In the early 1930s, it was decided to organize several correctional labor camps in the forest-rich western regions of the Mordovian ASSR. To manage them, Temlag was formed on June 6, 1931. The camp administration was stationed in the village of Yavas in the Zubovo-Polyansky district of the Mordovian ASSR.

The camp was under the operational subordination initially of the OGPU GULag and the OGPU PP, since 1935 — the NKVD GULag.

The maximum number of prisoners was registered on January 1, 1933 — 30,978 people.

It was reorganized on October 12, 1948 into a Special camp No. 3. The Temlag farm was transferred to Dubravlag and the GULAG Industrial Combine (later it was allocated to the production structure that did not have camp divisions, the Temnikovsky GULAG Combine).