the sami were not the only people subject to repressions. thousands of people were sent to kola in the 1930s–1950s, and in 2007 over two thousand people—descendants of those forcibly sent here—still live on the peninsula. a significant portion of the people deported to kola were peasants from southern russia subjected to dekulakization. prisoner labor was often used when building new factories and for manning those which were operational: in 1940, for example, the whole severonikel metallurgy mining complex was turned over to the nkvd system.