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Commemoration

The canal gave its name to the Belomorkanal Soviet cigarette brand.

There is a monument at Povenets for the prisoners who perished during the construction, and a smaller memorial in Belomorsk near the White Sea end. There was even a comedic play written about the canal by Nikolay Pogodin.

The canal project also gave the Russian language the slang word " zeka ", " zek, z/k " for "inmate". In Russian, "inmate", "incarcerated" is заключённый (zakliuchyonnyi), usually abbreviated to " з/к " in paperwork, and pronounced as " зэка " (IPA:, "zeh-KA"), which gradually transformed into " зэк " and " зек ", zek (both pronounced as IPA:). The word is still in colloquial use. Originally the abbreviation stood for zaklyuchyonny kanaloarmeyets (заключённый каналоармеец), literally "incarcerated canal-army-man". The latter term coined in an analogy with the words "krasnoarmeyets" meaning "member of the Red Army " or trudarmeyets (member of a labor army). According to the Soviet account, in 1932 when Anastas Mikoyan visited the Belomorstroy construction site, Lazar Kogan asked, "Comrade Mikoyan, what shall we call them? (…) I thought up the word: 'kanaloarmeyets'. What do you think?" Mikoyan approved.