Sometimes seemingly simple question lead to complex answers and questions about nature of a specific phenomenon are never considered simple. So the short answer is: yes, regular prisons by all means existed in the USSR. Now let's move to the longer answer.

Let's start from the usual nomenclature notice accompanying such a topic. The term 'gulag' that came to mean a Soviet labour camp, usually located in Siberia is a misnomer, as it has been created after the acronym GULag referring to Glavnoye Upravlenye Lagerov or General Camp Administration, a state agency tasked with the creation and supervision of the penal camps and colonies. In Russian, the camps and colonies were called as such, with the term 'GULag' being reserved only for the aforementioned institution.

Now, although the traditions of the forced resettlement to the Siberia date back to 17th century and the labour camps emerged along the development of the Siberian region in 19th and early 20th century in the Russian Empire (I touch on the subjects in more detail in this response), the Soviet camps themselves started to emerge only with the decision of the Political Bureau of the Central Commitee of the CPSU of 27th June 1929 that called for the creation of the labour camps supervised by OGPU. Initially, the inmates were all prisoners who were sentenced to an imprisonment for 3 years or more. This, of course, means that until 1929, people who received a prison sentence were doing time in a prison, much like anywhere else at this time, although many of correctional facilities were also places of forced labour treated as a part of the sentence. It should be noted however, that prior to that year, there were some objects similar to later labour camps that acted as the provisional prisons, such as the refugee and prisoner camps organized by Cheka during the Revolution and Civil War (although they were rare, as Cheka was usually summarily executing political prisoners) and rare secluded camps, like the Solovets Special Purpose Camp on the Solovets Islands located in the White Sea, between Kandalaksha Gulf and Onega Bay.

In the years 1925-1929 existed so-called 'isolation houses' (rus. домы заключения) holding all people sentenced to a jail time of 6 months or less before the sentence went in force. These prisons were included in the GULag administration as the places of imprisonment for all people who could not have been sent to penal colony or camp for some reason, usually related to the disability or poor health preventing them from performing hard labour. In addition, they were used as jails for all people under investigation, awaiting trial or being transported to a different place of imprisonment. So, besides typical labour camps, commonly associated with GULag, there were traditional prisons, although they housed only small part of the inmates.

Actual number fluctuated, but the number of prison inmates was usually in the ballpark of 7-15%, with the remaining ones doing their time in camps (or, using the official nomenclature, correction-labour colonies). Speaking of absolute numbers, the number of inmates peaked in 1950, reaching 2.75 million people (1.5% of the total population of USSR at the time) out of which 7% (192.000) remained in prisons and jails. This number dropped by half within three months after the Amnesty Act issued by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet on 27th March 1953, shortly after Stalin's death. It fell to an all-time low in 1960, when it reached roughly 600.000 people and then continued to rise, reaching slightly over 2 million people in 1985 and then abruptly falling to 1.1 mln in 1990.

Another form of penitentiary facility was 'correction and labour house' (rus. исправительно-трудовой дом), essentially a relatively low-security prison for inmates sentenced to more than 6 months of imprisonment who were not involved in anti-revolutionary movements and were not considered a threat to other inmates (i.e. people not sentenced for violent crimes). These prisons, doubling as a forced labour workshops were quite numerous in 1920s, but gradually declined since early 1930s, during the fast development of the GULag labour colonies and went officially defunct in 1933. In addition to these, there were also 'workhouses' (rus. трудовые домы) that were facilities meant as the correction centres for minors over 13 years of age that merged the function of juvenile detention and vocational school, striving to provide some form of upbringing and education for the young delinquents and children displaced in the events of Revolution and Civil War. These facilities were also liquidated in 1933.

In addition, since late 1960s, few percent of the inmates were sentenced to 'medical-labour prophylactories' (rus. лечебно-трудовой профилакторий), officially special penitentiary and rehabilitation facilities meant for chronic alcoholics and drug addicts, although most often than not they were regular prisons with the predominant method of 'rehabilitation' being mandatory work. Percentage of inmates in such facilities was initially low, but in mid-1980s it could have reached roughly 4-5% of all inmates in the country.

Last but not least, we need to mention faclities commonly known under a jargon term 'sharaga' (also under its diminutive form 'sharashka') or, using official name, Research and Construction Bureau (rus. опытное конструкторское бюро). These were actual research and development facilities within the state penitentiary structures governed by OGPU, NKVD and MVD that housed highly qualified scientists and engineers who worked on various advanced projects, usually of military character. Such prisons are uniquely associated with the Stalin era, being formed in 1929 and disbanded in 1934, then revived in 1938 during the 'Great Terror' and finally disbanded along 4th Special Department of MVD in 1953, shortly after Stalin's death.

Thus, various forms of prisons were very common in the 1920s, but were gradually replaced by the labour camps in the 1930s that housed bulk of the inmates throughout the entire Soviet period, although a certain percentage (8-15%) was located in various form of prisons or jails, with said percentage generally slowly rising since 1960s. In the post-Soviet era, many of the former labour colonies are still used as regular prisons.

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Ananyan, L.L, Тюрьмы и заключенные [Prisons and prisoners], Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 1999.

Sobolyov, D.A., Репрессии в советской авиапромышленности [Repressions in soviet aviation industry], in: Вопросы истории естествознания и техники [Issues in history, natural sciences and technology], 4/2000, pp. 44-58.