…, Germans, Pentecostalists, Those who have left
(Moscow, Leningrad, Voronezh; Yarym-Agayev, Women and Russia).
GERMANS
For two years Alexander Bous, a resident of Chelyabinsk, has been trying to emigrate with his father, mother and brother.
On 1 and 2 April 1980, an article entitled “Spiritual emigres” was published in the newspaper Chelyabinsk Worker. The main attack in the article was directed against Bous. Here is an extract from the article.
“A man with a broad forehead, with thinning hair tinged with red and bright blue eyes… And suddenly I remembered my war days. Even now I remember those other helmets. The dark, poisonously green colour, the brims slightly lowered and bent at the back. With a swastika… And the eyes under those helmets. The eyes which went especially well with those helmets were blue like ice… Nordic eyes — an attribute of the master race.”
Anatoly Arendar (CCE 56.1-2) and Ya.I. Bekker sent letters to the newspaper and to the Party Regional Committee in defence of Bous.
On 16 July 1980, the newspaper Chelyabinsk Worker stated, in an article entitled “Our Life Position”, that “A.F. Arendar has come forward in defence of spiritual emigres”.
*
PENTECOSTALISTS
On 1 July 1980, Boris Perchatkin (CCE 56.20) was arrested in Nakhodka, Primorsky Region (Krai), Soviet Far East.
*
On behalf of Pentecostalists who have renounced their Soviet citizenship and submitted papers for emigration from the USSR, N.G. Bobarykin from Starotitarovskaya village in the Krasnodar Region [Krai] (CCE 56.20) has sent a letter to participants of the CSCE Madrid Conference, asking for their help.
The letter recounts how the people summoned to the KGB for interrogation after the arrest of N. Goretoi were told that they too would be tried if they continued to appeal for help to foreign governments and organizations and to the people of the world.
It also says how they have been forbidden to leave their village, especially during the Olympics.
*
T.V. Ivanova of Leningrad has on several occasions handed in applications to emigrate from the USSR.
On 5 and 10 January 1980, she had talks with KGB officials about her applications. The talks took place at her home. Her visitors introduced themselves as Sasha and Yura; Yura said that he was a practising Christian (a ‘believer’).
They wanted to know many things: why she wished to emigrate; her attitude to the registration of her religious community; who was the community’s administrator; who was its leader, who taught them, and who had connections abroad. Not receiving the desired information, her guests resorted to threats, and they talked of the misery, unemployment and hunger which prevailed in the West. Nor did they steer clear of rudeness.
They then started to talk of the necessity of having an invitation from close relatives abroad. During 1979-1980 two invitations were sent to Ivanova from Israel. She received neither of them.
*
THOSE WHO HAVE LEFT
In May 1980, Muscovite Sergei ALEXEYEV (CCE 56.7), the son of Ludmila Alexeyeva (“Assistance with departures”, CCE 44.8), left the USSR. So did Muscovite Yevgeny NIKOLAYEV (CCE 56.20), a member of the Council of Representatives of SMOT (the Free Inter-trade Association of Working People, CCE 51), who left with his wife Tyan Zaochnaya.
From Leningrad the poetess Yulia OKULOVA-VOZNESENSKAYA (CCE 43, 46, 55 and 56) and Dzhemma KVACHEVSKAYA (CCE 6 & CCE 9), with her husband Pavel Babich emigrated in May. The German Genrikh Reimer (CCE 44 & CCE 54) left the USSR in May.
In June 1980, L. OLKHOVA (CCE 45) from Voronezh, her son G. Olkhov (CCE 47 and 52), and T. SAMSONOVA (CCE 56), wife of P. Egides (CCE 56), Poiski (Searches) editorial board member, all left the USSR.
In July 1980, former political prisoner Vyacheslav REPNIKOV (CCE 47) left for the West. That same month Vasily AKSYONOV (CCE 52, 54 and 55), one of the compilers of the Metropole almanac, went to lecture in the USA for two years.
*
Yury Yarym Agayev
On 2 May 1980, member of the Moscow Helsinki Group Yury YARYM-AGAYEV sent a statement to the State Committee on Science and Technology, the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet.
He had been dismissed from his post as a research officer at the Institute of Chemical Physics on account of his activities as a defender of the rule of law, he wrote, and had been unable subsequently to find permanent work in his field. He then said that he had had several invitations from American universities, and that so far as he could see, his only chance of continuing his scientific work lay in accepting one of these invitations. In view of this Yarym-Agayev asked to be allowed to visit the USA for two to three years.
Yury Yarym-Agayev,(b. 1949)
On 28 May Yarym-Agayev received a post-card with no return address, asking him to telephone “Dergachev”. It turned out that Dergachev was Head of the Science Department of the Moscow City Party Committee, and he had been sent one of Yarym-Agayev’s statements.
Yarym-Agayev could not be sent to work in America, said Dergachev, because he had no permanent post and because there was no one to send him. Yarym-Agayev objected that he was asking to visit the USA precisely because he could not find a permanent post in the USSR and he did not need anyone to send him, he just needed an exit visa. Dergachev replied that he would have to apply to OVIR for that.
*
On 30 May 1980, Yarym-Agayev was detained on the street by KGB officials (including B. B. Karatayev: CCE 32, 45, 47, 51 and 54). He was taken to the police station near his registered place of residence. At first the station chief tried unsuccessfully to accuse him of parasitism. Then a KGB official interrupted and said that now he would have a talk with Yarym-Agayev. “Should l leave?” asked the chief. “You can stay,” was the reply. The KGB official then said to Yarym-Agayev:
“As you know, Tatyana Osipova was arrested on 27 May. You were, and are still, engaged in the same activities as she, and we have all the grounds for your arrest. We won’t discuss your views now; we know that you stick hard to them; but you won’t be able to live here with them. We know that you’ve submitted a statement in which you say that you want to go and work in the USA for two or three years. You won’t leave here that way. However, you may leave in the usual way. Only we’ll have to agree right now on the date — you mustn’t be here when the Olympics start. We’ll say 1 July, provisionally. If you have any problems, let us know.”
Afterwards, “so that all this doesn’t remain just words” (this from a KGB official), Yarym-Agayev was issued a formal caution “in accordance with the Decree” (see “The Group receives a Caution”, CCE 57.2, in this issue). After Yarym-Agayev had signed the paper stating he had been cautioned, KGB officials advised him not to discuss their conversation and released him.
On 3 July, when Yarym-Agayev went to OVIR for his visa, he was met there by Karatayev, who told him that he would have to be interrogated before receiving his visa (see this issue, “The Arrest of Osipova”, CCE 57.2).
On 8 July Yarym-Agayev flew abroad. After his departure five members of the Moscow Helsinki Group remained at liberty: E. Bonner, S. Kalistratova, Ivan Kovalyov, N. Meiman and F. Serebrov.
*
Women and Russia
When the almanac Women and Russia (CCE 55.11) came out in December 1979 its editors were warned that, in the event of a second number being issued, a criminal case would be brought against them under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code).
*
On 5 May 1980, the almanac Maria appeared in Leningrad. In April S. Sokolova (see CCEs 55 and 56) was detained and searched several times; at one of the searches a mock-up for the forthcoming almanac was confiscated.
Just before the Olympics T. Goricheva (CCE 55 and 56) was told that if she did not leave within a few days she would be arrested. They gave her a visa the next day. (Earlier she had applied to emigrate.) She left the USSR, with T. Mamonova and N. Malakhovskaya, during the first days of the Olympics.
=========================================
A Chronicle of Current Events 