Kronid Lyubarsky
On 17 January 1977, Kronid Arkadyevich LYUBARSKY left Vladimir Prison after serving his full 5-year sentence. Despite his categorical objections (his family lives in the settlement of Chernogolovka near Moscow), in his “Release Document” the paragraph “To be sent to …” was inscribed “Tarusa in Kaluga Region” . This inscription means that in order to obtain a passport he was forced to go to Tarusa (in no other place would he have been issued with a passport).
On the morning of 18 January, the police arrived at a flat in Moscow at which Lyubarsky and his family were spending the night and took him off to a police station; there he was “advised” “not to delay in Moscow” .
On the morning of 19 January, the police broke into another flat in Moscow in which Lyubarsky and his family were staying the night.
On 20 January Lyubarsky made a statement at a press conference. He said that in the middle of the 1970s fundamentally new tendencies had developed amongst Soviet political prisoners: political prisoners felt themselves to be a united whole, one of the ranks of the opposition, acting in a concerted way in the vanguard of the struggle. Also, political prisoners in different camps and prisons had begun to carry out joint actions: launching a movement for the legislative adoption of a Statute on Political Prisoners, and, until such a law was adopted, personally acting on the Statute without official permission; the regular observance of Political Prisoners Day (30 October) and of Remembrance Day for the Victims of Red Terror (5 September).
Lyubarsky described how courts were refusing to examine petitions from political prisoners to the administration; in this connection he cited the answer of chairman Revenkova of Zubovo-Polyansky district assizes (Mordovia) to the petition of M.Ya. Makarenko: “Any actions performed by MVD officers in the execution of their duties are not under the jurisdiction of courts and can be complained about only to higher organs of the MVD.”
Lyubarsky directed the attention of the correspondents to the fact that prisoners who had served their term were, with the help of the unpublished Rules on Registration and the Statute on Administrative Surveillance, frequently deprived of the possibility of living with their family and were, effectively, in the position of exiles. Lyubarsky asked correspondents to draw the attention of world opinion to the fate of Vasily Petrovich Fedorenko (CCEs 38, 39), who (with short interruptions) had been maintaining a hunger-strike since April 1975 in protest against the violation of human rights in the USSR and against his own unlawful sentence.
On the morning of 21 January someone broke into the next flat in Moscow in which Lyubarsky and his family spent the night.
On 22 January Lyubarsky was taken off to a police station. There it was recorded against him that he had violated the residence rules and he was formally told to leave the boundaries of Moscow and the Moscow Region within 72 hours. There too, despite his passive resistance, his fingerprints were taken by force and he was photographed. In this connection the police referred to an unpublished resolution of the USSR Council of Ministers of 25 June 1964 (No. 585), according to which persons with a conviction who violate the residence rules can have their fingerprints taken.
On 25 January Lyubarsky left Moscow for Tarusa.
On 1 February he was put under surveillance there for a year.
At first, he was offered a passport with registration in a hostel but Lyubarsky refused to accept a passport with compulsory registration. He complained about the actions of the police to the town soviet executive committee and to the communist party district committee. The following day the police allowed him to choose his own place of residence in Tarusa. Lyubarsky registered himself at the house of A. Ginzburg.
To all the statements in which Lyubarsky, referring to one of the published provisions of the rules on registration, demanded permission to live with his family, he received refusals. The police in their refusals also referred to the rules on registration, but to one of the unpublished provisions (CCE 34).
In Tarusa there is no work for Lyubarsky in his profession of astronomer.
(About Lyubarsky see also “Reprisals against Helsinki Groups”, Tn the Prisons and Camps” and “Letters and Statements”).
Surveillance of Strokatova
On 2 February 1976, after serving four years (1971-1975), Nina Antonovna STROKATOVA, the wife of Svyatoslav Karavansky, was placed under administrative surveillance in Tarusa for a year (CCE 39).
The American Association of Microbiologists had earlier Nina Strokatova as a member. In April 1976 Strokatova received an invitation to the annual meeting of the association. She asked the police for permission to go to Moscow for three days for her regular oncological examination and for the clarification at the U S embassy of questions connected with the invitation. She received permission. However, on the day she should have met the American consul on the street not far from the embassy, two men went up to the consul (a woman) who had gone out to meet Strokatova and declared that they would go everywhere with her. The consul asked for protection from the policeman guarding the entrance to the embassy but was told in reply that the men pestering her were free Soviet citizens and could go where they liked.
As a result, the meeting of Strokatova and the consul did not take place that day. Although this was the last day of Strokatova’s authorized stay in Moscow, she decided to stay longer in order to meet the consul in any case. Because of this she was not at home the following day at 20.00 hours. For this a court fined her 15 roubles and recorded her first “violation of the rules of surveillance”. (At that time in April N. Strokatova handed in an application to OVIR requesting permission to go to the USA in May; she received a refusal in June.)
In October 1976 Strokatova fell seriously ill and was transported to Kaluga hospital. In November she was discharged at her own request. On 20 November Strokatova, without asking permission from the police, entered a Moscow hospital, where she stayed until 4 January 1977. On 17 January, the chairman of the Tarusa people’s court N. P. Karpezhnikov fined Strokatova 20 roubles for her absence in November-January and recorded her second “violation”.
On 3 February Strokatova was again put under surveillance, this time for six months.
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Oleg Vorobyov, who was released in September 1976 (CCE 42), was placed under surveillance in Tarusa. The police registered him at the house of A. Ginzburg, without asking for the agreement of either the proprietor of the house or Vorobyov. [An error. CCE 45 corrects it by saying that Vorobyov requested registration here.]
In February 1977 Vorobyov moved to another flat, having previously informed the police in writing of his new address.
On the first evening after Vorobyov had moved, the police appeared at Ginzburg’s house and, naturally, did not find Vorobyov there. A record was drawn up. The two following evenings two analogous records were drawn up.
The police accused Vorobyov of having changed his place of residence without receiving their permission, although according to the Statute on Administrative Surveillance (point 15) a person under surveillance is obliged to inform police officers about the change of his place of residence but is not obliged to ask the police for permission.
On 9 March N. P. Karpezhnikov fined Vorobyov 30 roubles and recorded his first “violation of the rules of surveillance”.
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Ya. Suslensky, who was released from Vladimir in January 1977, has been placed under surveillance in the town of Bendery (Moldavia).
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On Nadezhda Svetlichnaya see the section “Letters and Statements”, and also CCEs 41-43. At the end of January, she managed to find work in Kiev (as a house attendant), but as before is not registered for residence.
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On Kuzma Matviyuk see the section “Letters and Statements” in CCEs 33, 42, At the end of January 1977 he found work as a junior technologist. He has three diplomas: he graduated from the engineering and teachers’ training faculties of the Ukrainian Agricultural Academy and from the evening university of Marxism-Leninism. His address: Ukrainian SSR, Kirovograd Region, Alexandria, flat 8, 58 Krasnoarmeiskaya St.
A Chronicle of Current Events 