I don’t think it’s helpful to say “I’m not surprised,” we shouldn’t assume everyone knows what we know. Some people, especially younger ones, may not be aware of the gulag system at all.

Aren’t penal colony and gulag interchangeable terms?

Somehow I don’t think modern Russian penal colonies are much like the gulag. Do workers make full wages for their work? Are they allowed to have their families live with them or earn 2 week trips out of the colony? Do they allow them to wear their civilian clothes? Can they send their money back to their families on the outside? Is 40% of the population turned over every year? I imagine they were referring to the mythological “gulag”, and not the real historical one we have actual physical evidence of, because that’s typically how it goes.

I’m sorry, is this somehow a revelation? “Direct heir” they say… There is a very good chance that “penal colony” is a former Gulag.