Actually, fun fact regarding GULAGs, most of the GULAGs were not in Siberia. A lot of them were in Northern Russia. Some of the GULAGs were in even in non-Russian Soviet states like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
Here's a fun map of where the Gulags were.
Pictured: Map of the Soviet Union. Note how most of them are in what we call "ethnic Russia" on the Western edge of Russia. If you notice, there are some GULAGs in Georgia, Estonia and even near St. Petersburg and Moscow.