Alexander Nogtev

Alexander Petrovich Nogtev (Russian: Александр Петрович Ногтев; 1892 – 23 April 1947) was a Soviet state security official and first commander of the Solovki prison camp.

In August 1918, Nogtev and a group were sent to Kotlas to block the Northern Dvina river to the movements of ships opposed to the Bolsheviks.

In 1919 he became a commissar of a special unit in Samara on the front against Admiral Alexander Kolchak's troops and took part in battles against the Ural Army.

Tensions culminated in guards opening fire on a group of political prisoners during an argument on 19 December 1923, killing six.

News of the killings leaked abroad, and Communist leadership demanded an investigation, with OGPU official Gleb Bokii making an inspection the following year.

[7] Shortly after the end of the Second World War, due to a change in the law, Nogtev's term of imprisonment was reduced to seven years, so that he was transferred to Moscow to submit his claims.