In 1920, during the height of the Civil War, Lenin sent a telegram to Penza stating: "conduct ruthless terror, imprison all suspicious individuals in a concentration camp outside the city." This "colony" was located on Revolutionary Street.

Today, there is no trace left of that camp. Even during World War I, buildings for refugees began to be constructed on the territory of a brick factory, and after the revolution, the buildings were repurposed into a colony. Prisoners lived in wooden barracks with plank beds, there were three holes in the ceiling for ventilation, and the entire area was surrounded by a high fence topped with barbed wire. The first inmates were 213 peasant rebels from Izhmor who rose against the Soviet authority. They were not provided with new clothes, and everyone wore what they were arrested in. The camp commander Ivan Mileshkin complained in his report: "There is a lack of uniforms! Some peasants have not changed their underwear for 4 months and are completely infested with lice." Over time, the name "concentration camp" was changed to "corrective labor camp." Prisoners were taken out for work daily, forced to labor until their hands were bloody and calloused.

Not only peasants fell victim to repression. Nobles, merchants, and many associated with the tsarist regime also faced brutal punishments. The brother of the famous silent film actor Alexei Mozzhukhin was held in this camp, arrested simply for being an officer in the imperial army.

The lists of the convicted with specified sentences are interesting. For example, robbery resulted in 6 months of imprisonment, while criticism of the school reform led to a year. Among the inmates was a man who suppressed peasant uprisings in 1905, with no specific sentence until the end of the Civil War.

The camp was hastily dismantled in the 1920s, but its history did not end there. The prisoners were transferred to other camps, now in the Tambov region.

No photographs of the Penza concentration camp have survived. Images were created based on reports and explanations from the camp commandant Ivan Mileshkin. This is what the camp barracks, guard rooms, and laundry looked like. It is worth noting that there were no baths, and prisoners were not allowed to wash for 4 months, making lice their constant companions.