Exile of that kind was by no means limited to Russia, as it has been extensively used by other empires of the era, predominantly Great Britain and France that were sending their prisoners to the distant areas, usually colonies outside Europe. In a way, this form of resettlement was more severe than the one used by Russian authorities, as in most cases it has been meant to be permanent, primarily due to the sheer distance between the metropolis and the colony, while the Russian exiles, unless specifically sentenced to permanent resettlement, were free to return what they often did (many, like Lenin, did so more than once). Also please note that although such punishment was often meted out for the crimes of political nature, the exiles were initially common criminals, especially in the early period of the Siberian settlement, with the number of political prisoners increasing with the strengthening of the absolutist power and rising discontent. Last but not least, let me point out that the exile of that kind did not always meant transfer to Siberia, as both resettlement or hard labour could have taken place in remote regions of the European part of Russia, especially in 17th and 18th century (the same can also be said of the Soviet prison camps and penal colonies).

General exile in the tsarist Russia was hardly comparable to the Soviet labour camps (the term 'gulag', common in English, is actually an abbreviation of the Glavnoye Upravleniye Lagyerov or General Camps Administration, an government agency supervising the camps) as the latter, although the inmates expected to do hard labour outside their holding area, were in essence regular prisons, with inmates being closely guarded and able to move only between the prison facilities and the workplace. Exile, on the other hand, unless specifically sentenced to do hard labour (rus. katorga) was pretty much limited to the forced resettlement, but the exiles themselves were free to move around and act like all others inhabitants of the settlement. Their main limitation was that they were unable to gain permission to leave a given administrative area, change their place of residence throughout the sentence and visit larger cities. Given that many Russians required governmental permission to leave their area and the level of development until early 20th century made travel quite difficult, life of an exile was not that different from that of a typical Russian living in a small settlement. With the development of Siberia and its cities, these 'small settlements' became towns and cities, further diminishing the difference.

Officials and officers who were sentenced to exile for various transgressions, often of political character, were usually forbidden to live in Petersburg and Moscow, and those who lived in these two cities, were forbidden to settle in both these governorates. People living in these governorates but not their capital cities, were forced to resettle to another governorate, save for those located close to state borders, governorates of Novgorod, Tver and Vyatka (now Kirov) and all cities where the fairs were organized. This was done to make sure that the exiled to the areas with low population and little traffic, and thus had little opportunities to meet like-minded people with who they could have conspired against the government. Some people, sentenced for anti-government tendencies but not actively conspiring against the state could have been exiled from largest cities, as was the case of Alexander Pushkin, who, after writing his strongly anti-absolutist poems (what was the more serious as Pushkin was at the time a state official himself) was sentenced to leave his native Petersburg and, thanks to intervention of his well-connected friends, he was simply relegated to another office in Kishynev (now Chishinau, Moldova), but otherwise was free to travel.

Now, the hard labour (katorga) mentioned before, was something different and might be considered a direct precursor to the forced labour in Soviet GULag system. As the name suggests, the sentence included not only a forced resettlement, but also a mandatory labour, often dangerous, like tree-felling or mining. Initially it has been limited to the most serious crimes. Russian rulers of the time were very reluctant to use death penalty after the Act of 1705 issued by Peter I to largely replace it by the lifetime forced labour and e.g. between the execution of Yemelian Pugachov in 1775 and execution of five leaders of Decembrists in 1826 no death sentences were delivered in the whole Empire. Since the late 18th century they were also commonly associated with the punishment for the participation in anti-government actions, such as the Decembrists' mutiny of 1826 as well as patriotic or liberation movements, especially in the annexed areas, such as the November Uprising and Polish-Russian War of 1830-1831 and subsequent January Uprising in 1863-1864. This was not really a new development, as the exile to the fringe regions of the country has been a common punishment for the rebels and, in case of palace coups, also officials supporting the losing faction, since at least the 16th century. It is generally accepted that the first mass exile to Siberia were ordered by Fyodor I who banished in this way few hundred inhabitants of Uglich to Pelym in 1593, after the suspicious murder of Dmitry, son of the late Ivan IV and resulting troubles in the city.It is worth noting that in the 17th century, the exile and forced labour were quite similar in practice, and the punishment itself was in general a part of the colonization of the newly acquired lands, initially the Ural Mountains, then Caucasus and then regions of Siberia located progressively farther to the east. Lack of any transport network, up to end including roads compounded with rather difficult Siberian terrain and harsh climate made escape attempts very dangerous, so the supervision over the exiles was minimal. Some people nominally sentenced to 'hard labour' were essentially becoming temporary serfs (sometimes not changing their actual social standing) able to pad their income with private enterprise (such as hunting for furs) rather than prisoners. Others simply became forcibly relocated and settled in the small agricultural villages, where they more or less became regular peasants.

Near the end of 17th century, during the reign of Peter I, forced labour became a punishment distinctly separate from the forcible resettlement. Initially, true to its namesake (the Russian term katorga used to denote such punishment is derived from Greek katergon, meaning 'galley'), the forced labour was primarily limited to the operation of the oar-propelled barges carrying various goods required during the fast modernization of the country ordered by the new monarch, chiefly the construction on Petersburg. It quickly diversified though, being extended to other forms of work, usually requiring large number of unskilled workers. Later in 18th century, with the steady development of the Siberia, criminals were being sent to various production facilities (the forced labour was generally productive, with very little to no forms of unproductive, punitive labour being used). The system was largely haphazard and its results differed heavily, so in the last years of 18th century and first two decades of the subsequent one, several amending attempts were made, starting with the acts issued by Paul I and continued with the reforms by Selifontov and Speranski, resulting in new, detailed legal rulings concerning the exile and forced labour sentences. Nevertheless, this system of forced labour essentially was providing free workers for various state-owned facilities that were sometimes lent to private people and begun to unravel in the second half of the 19th centuries, with the feudal mechanisms slowly being phased out and private enterprises being reluctant to accept inmates. This led to de facto transformation of the katorga sentences into regular imprisonment, with the Siberian centres for the inmates functioning as typical prisons, with the caveat that the inmates were, after finishing their sentence, permanently resettled to Siberia instead of returning to their previous residence. This, again, somewhat changed in the late 19th century, with the technological development of Siberia and following requirements for transport, with the forced labour again being used to construct roads, railways or bridges, not unlike 'chain gangs' anywhere else.

So, to sum it up, the exile was nothing like the Soviet-era labour camps (as it was aimed at resettlement rather than imprisonment) and if anything, it resembled the deportation to the colonies in France or England. On the other hand, the sentences of forced labour in the distant areas of European Russia and Siberia can be quite closely compared to the Soviet prison labour camp system that might be treated as its direct successor.