Chernyakhovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital

[Kaliningrad Region]

Kubyshkin is a worker from near Moscow, just over 50 years old. Previously he was charged under Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code for “conversations”, declared mentally incompetent and sent to the Leningrad Special Psychiatric Hospital. Now he has once again been “excused punishment” and this time sent to Chernyakhovsk. He is charged under Article 70 for abusing the Soviet system during a quarrel with a neighbour in his house. Kubyshkin refuses to attend the commissions which review the possible discharge of patients.

Veniamin Mikhailovich MOISEYEV is a teacher from central Russia, aged about 50. In 1966 he went to the Party district committee to ask for a flat. Receiving a rude refusal, he got excited and told them exactly what he thought of the Party and its officials. After this a case was opened against Moiseyev under Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. A commission of experts pronounced him non-responsible. Moiseyev has spent nine years in the special psychiatric hospital. During this time, he has almost lost his sight.

Porosenkov has been in the hospital since 1974, also “for conversations”. At the beginning of the 1960s, also, he spent some time undergoing compulsory treatment in connection with political charges. In the summer of 1975, while working in the hospital workshops, Porosenkov tried to throw himself under a lorry which was taking a load out of the workshop. After this he was put on a special regime and began to undergo intensive treatment.

Shaporenko, a resident of Bryansk, aged about 30. He ended up in Chernyakhovsk in 1974 for distributing leaflets (Article 70).

Vladimir Shushenkov (b. 1949) former air force pilot. In 1972, after a stay in a psychiatric hospital, he was drafted out of the air force. Approximately six months later Shushenkov was arrested for ‘agitation’, declared mentally incompetent and sent to Chernyakhovsk.

Heino Jogesma (b. 1937) electrician from Tallinn. Attempted to cross the border. His stay in the Serbsky Institute was reported in CCE 32. He has been in Chernyakhovsk since 1974.

Gleb Alexeyevich Bychkov, taxi-driver from Sochi, 50 years old. Arrested under Article 190-1 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for “conversations”. He was taken to Chernyakhovsk in 1972. It is possible that at the present time Bychkov has already been discharged.

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In 1975 the following were discharged from the Chernyakhovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital:

Agafonov, a resident of Kaliningrad, arrested for circulating texts he had prepared himself, and distributing them in letters or putting them into post- boxes. He had spent more than five years in the hospital.

Vasily Gudilin, about 33 years old, a student at an agricultural technical college. He spent about seven years in Chernyakhovsk for damaging some political posters — he tore them and wrote something on them.

Leonid Kravchenko, an economist from Tallinn, had spent three or four years in Chernyakhovsk. He was accused of conducting propaganda in favour of war.

CCE 8 reported that G. Forpostov was held in Chernyakhovsk. Forpostov is a Pole who worked in Minsk as a lecturer. He was convicted of ‘betraying the motherland’ — attempting to flee to Poland. After spending eight years in a camp, he was declared mentally ill and sent to Chernyakhovsk. He spent another seven years there and was then released.

Sychyovka Special Psychiatric Hospital

[Smolensk Region]

(Corrections and additions to CCE 39.3)

On the list of people accused under political articles appears the name of A. Andreyev. After an unsuccessful attempt to cross the border he spent about six years in the Blagoveshchensk special hospital, ran away from it, was caught and transferred to Sychyovka. However, Andreyev was discharged from Sychyovka several years ago.

Boss is mentioned on the same list. His full name is David Yakovlevich Boss. He is a Volga German. In 1950 he was sent to the camps under Article 58-10 and he has not been free since. Boss has been in hospitals for about ten years now, first in Kazan, then in Sychyovka. He refuses to attend commissions.

Nikolai Ivanovich BRESLAVSKY (previously mentioned as Bzheslavsky or Broslavsky). During the war he served in Iran, and not on the Turkish border, as stated in CCE 39.3. Having crossed the border, Breslavsky lived in Turkey until the end of the war. The Americans handed him over to the Soviet authorities on the basis of the Yalta agreement. He was released from camp in 1956 and immediately went to the Turkish Embassy, hoping to receive an exit visa for Turkey. Breslavsky was arrested at the entrance to the embassy and after a short investigation was sent to a special psychiatric hospital, Breslavsky is now over seventy, and has a rupture and other somatic diseases.

Vitaly Kuzmich BUBLIK (his initials were given wrongly in CCE 39.3), b. 1924, Ukrainian. During the war he found himself in occupied territory and worked on road repairing and construction. After the war Bublik was convicted of ‘collaborating with the Germans’. He spent the years from 1944 to 1956 in imprisonment. Then he lived in Batumi. In 1959, at the first American exhibition in Moscow, he told an American correspondent about his fate. At the exit from the exhibition KGB officials detained Bublik and questioned him, and when he returned home to Batumi he was arrested and declared mentally incompetent.

Alexei Nikiforovich KOTOV (mistakenly called Kitov in CCE 30 and 39.3) is an Orthodox believer. In all he has probably served more than 40 years of imprisonment for propagating religion, the last ten of them in psychiatric hospitals. In 1971 Kotov was discharged from the Vladimir regional hospital into the guardianship of Faina Nikiforovna Komarova, a cleaner in the hospital and also a believer. About a year later guardian and ward were arrested and both were declared mentally incompetent. (Komarova had not previously been on the psychiatric register,) Kotov was sent to Sychyovka and Komarova to Kazan.

Mikhail Klishch arrived in Sychyovka from Vladimir Prison in 1974.

Josif Terelya. CCE 39.3 stated that he was first of all sentenced for Ukrainian nationalist propaganda. In fact, Terelya was a common criminal, and was prosecuted on a ‘political’ charge only in 1969, for distributing leaflets. In 1975 Terelya was transferred to an ordinary hospital in Chelyabinsk, Vladimir Grigorevich Titov, b. 1937, from Kaluga region, arrived in Sychyovka hospital in 1973. He graduated from a KGB training school and held the rank of first lieutenant. He was arrested in 1969 and sentenced to 5 years under Article 70. At first, he served his time in the Mordovian camps and in Vladimir Prison. In 1975 Titov was transferred to an ordinary psychiatric hospital in Kaluga (see CCEs 30, 39).

CCE 39.3 gave an incorrect date for the transfer of Mikhail Kukobaka from Sychyovka to an ordinary hospital. This took place in 1974.

Andrei Matko (b. 1950), a worker from near Moscow, is being held in the Sychyovka SPH (not in Kazan, as stated in CCE 39). He was arrested in spring 1975 as a member of a group intending to wage a struggle against the dominance of ‘Zionists’ in the country. In their opinion, Jews held all the responsible posts in the government and were firmly ensconced in the government and the KGB. According to rumours, this group intended first of all to destroy the Moscow synagogue. Matko had been on the psychiatric register earlier. He was declared mentally incompetent by an expert commission in the Serbsky Institute.

It is possible that one of Matko’s co-defendants was Alexander Yuryevich Chernogorov, arrested on 28 April 1975 in the town of Murom. He was also declared mentally incompetent by an expert commission in the Serbsky Institute in spring 1975. The Chronicle does not know where Chernogorov was sent after the expert commission.

In CCE 39.3 Timokhin was mentioned among the prisoners in Vladimir Prison, His story was recounted inaccurately. Valiakhmed Khaidarovich TIMOKHIN, a 28-year-old artist and restorer from Vladimir region, was arrested on 6 November 1975 in the town of Strunino. He was accused under Article 70 with distributing leaflets in Zagorsk, Alexandrov and Strunino. In the name of a non-existent “Society of the Friends of Solzhenitsyn”, these leaflets prescribed the creation of underground cells to overthrow the ‘Brezhnev clique’ and re-organize the life of the country on traditional Russian and Orthodox foundations. These cells were to orientate themselves simultaneously on Solzhenitsyn, the journal Veche and the NTS [People’s Labour Union].

Timokhin’s case was conducted by Major Pleshkov, a senior investigator of the Vladimir region KGB. Timokhin refused to give evidence. During the investigation he was held in Vladimir Prison. A local expert commission in December 1975, and then an expert commission at the Serbsky Institute in January-February 1976, declared Timokhin mentally incompetent. Recently he was transferred to the Sychyovka special hospital. [114]

CCE 39.3 named Bodanin and Uletsky among the prisoners of the Sychyovka SPH supposedly charged with political articles. Bodanin was in fact imprisoned for rape and murder, and in 1974 was transferred to an ordinary hospital. Uletsky was accused of enticing minors to drink. He himself considers that he was arrested for expressing his views on abuses of power by the authorities.

Zinovy Mikhailovich KRASIVSKY (CCEs 27, 39.3) appeared on the list of prisoners in the Sychyovka SPH through a misunderstanding. He is in the special psychiatric hospital in Smolensk. [80] He was transferred there in 1972 after being declared mentally incompetent.

Victor Tselykh, a programme engineer from Krasnoyarsk, arrested, apparently in 1971, was in the same Smolensk SPH in 1974. He was incriminated with duplicating samizdat literature. He refused to give evidence at his investigation and was declared mentally incompetent. It is not known at the present time whether or not Tselykh has been discharged.

Yury Belov (CCE 39.3) was recently transferred from the Sychyovka SPH to that in Smolensk.

About the medical personnel of the Sychyovka SPH

Department 4 of the hospital is renowned for the greatest cruelty towards patients. Recently it has been headed by Albert Lvovich Zeleneyev.

The former head of department 4, Major [Leonid] Lyamits (in CCE 30 called Lyamin), has become the head of the hospital. It is said that he used to beat patients in his department with his own hands.

Doctors Yuzef Kazimirovich But and Victor Yefimovich Tsarev are also distinguished for their exceptional cruelty.

Dnepropetrovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital

Pyotr Trotsyuk-Kozlyuk is about 50 years old and was in the Ukrainian Insurrectionary Army [UPA]. After the war he was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment under Article 58 of the old Criminal Code. Having served about half his sentence, he escaped from his camp. He spent about six years at liberty, worked, and got married. He has a child.

One day an acquaintance of his recognized him in the street and informed on him. Trotsyuk-Kozlyuk was arrested once more and in 1962 sent to serve the rest of his sentence. Five years ago, a case was brought against him under Article 102 of the Criminal Code (“premeditated murder with aggravating circumstances”), as his [wartime] participation in the terrorist activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists [OUN] had been revealed. In 1972, an expert commission in the Serbsky Institute declared Trotsyuk-Kozlyuk mentally incompetent and he was sent to Dnepropetrovsk SPH.

Kazan Special Psychiatric Hospital

Lev Kindeyev, a resident of Sakhalin, has been held here since 1972, He was arrested for attempting to cross the Turkish border.

As far as the Chronicle knows, in recent years there have not been trials at which people have been found guilty of terrorist activity. However, it is known that several people accused of terrorist activity have been declared mentally incompetent. Three such terrorists are held in the Kazan SPH. The Chronicle is naturally in no position to estimate the degree of their mental health but considers it possible to report the facts known to it.

Nikolai Demyanov (b. 1938) is an engineer from Moscow. He was arrested in connection with the fact that he had rented or bought a house on the Vnukovo Highway and carried out earthworks from his house in the direction of the road. During a search of his Moscow flat a partly-made bomb was discovered. Demyanov was accused of preparing an explosion on a route used by government officials.

Anatoly Ilyn, a Leningrader (b. 1947), made an attempt on Brezhnev’s life on 22 January 1969. Ilyn came to Moscow, changed into a police officer’s uniform, and stood near the Borovitsky Gate of the Kremlin. When a cortege of the cars of state leaders returned from a ceremonial meeting with cosmonauts and went past him, Ilyn fired a revolver at the leading car. He slightly wounded a motorcyclist and fatally wounded the chauffeur of one of the cars. Ilyn was arrested on the spot.

A year or so later a report appeared in Izvestiya [21 March 1970] to the effect that Ilyn had been declared mentally incompetent. A. Snezhnevsky, V. Morozov and G. Morozov took part in the psychiatric examination. In Kazan Ilyn is held alone all the time, in complete isolation. He is being given large doses of neuroleptic drugs.

Pavel Kuznetsov (b. 1956) was a schoolboy in Moscow. Arrested in 1971, Kuznetsov and two of his friends had formed a ‘terrorist group’. They got hold of a pistol and set fire to a propaganda centre; there were no casualties. They needed more weapons for further actions, “in order to return fire if necessary”, Kuznetsov went to his teacher for military affairs and asked him to give him the weapon which he had in his study. The teacher, despite threats, refused, and was killed.

Kuznetsov and both his friends were arrested under Article 66 (“Terrorism”) and declared mentally incompetent. One of them died in hospital and the other was discharged. Kuznetsov received and is still receiving large doses of neuroleptic drugs. Kuznetsov’s group did not pursue any social or political aims; their ‘activity’ was apparently a means of self-assertion. Kuznetsov’s case has been reported in the Soviet press.

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