<<No 55 : 31 December 1979>>

[1]

The Arrest of Lesiv (Bolekhov).

On 15 November 1979, Yaroslav LESIV was arrested in the town of Bolekhov, Ivano-Frankovsk Region (west Ukraine), and charged with possessing narcotics.

Before his arrest Lesiv was searched. The people searching him went straight for his jacket, in which they found a packet of drugs. Several days before the arrest Lesiv had been to a clinic for an X-ray and had hung his jacket out of sight in a room next door to the doctor’s office.

‘A small quantity’, as the record put it, of some sort of white powder was also found during the search. Lesiv assumes that the powder was planted on the spot.

[2]

The Arrest of Ryzhov-Davydov (Kuibyshev).

On 28 November 1979, a series of searches took place in Kuibyshev (Volga Okrug).

The warrants were signed by Senior Investigator G.I. Inovlotsky of the City Procurator’s Office. Searches were conducted at the homes of Victor DAVYDOV (on 27 October Victor Ryzhov [note 1] married and adopted the surname Davydov) and his wife Lyubov Davydova; Anatoly Sarbayev (who was not in Kuibyshev at the time — see below) and his wife Larissa Sarbayeva; and the residences of Kuibyshev University philology student Sofia Yuzefpolskaya and R.V. Yushkina.

Victor Ryzhov-Davydov (b. 1956)

The following were confiscated from Davydov:

• A typewriter,
• samizdat works The Phenomenon of Totalitarianism, Problems of Contemporary Christianity and “There Will be No Second Coming: A Composition in Memory of Stalin” (CCE 54),
• a photocopy of a letter from Boris Zubakhin (CCE 54) containing a critique of the projected Constitution,
• copies of statements by his wife to the Regional procurator’s office,
• Information Bulletin No. 19 of The Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes,
• New Journal [Novyi Zhurnal] (U S A) No, 93,
• the books A Diary of My Meetings by the Emigre artist Yu. Annenkov and Hegelianism in the Service of German Fascism by Arzhanov,
• typewritten copies of V. Bebko’s letters from the camps (CCE 54),
• typewritten copies of poetry by O. Mandelhtam,
• a signed photograph from P. Yakir,
• and a notebook were confiscated from Davydov (who was named Ryzhov-Davydov in the search record).

Copies of the same poems by Mandelstam, a syringe, 18 blank “Memoranda on Temporary Incapacity to Work”, four blank prescription forms for the Internal Affairs clinic, the books Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung (vol. 2) and From Erasmus of Rotterdam to Bertrand Russell, notebooks, letters, notes and a sample of the print from her typewriter were confiscated from Lyubov Davydova.

*

On 28 November 1979, Victor Davydov was arrested.

He was charged under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code). The same day Investigator Inovlotsky interrogated Lyubov Davydova. He asked her who was the author of The Phenomenon of Totalitarianism, what her husband thought about the Soviet system, and who had been with him on his birthday. The next day Davydova was seized on the street and taken to V.V. Kazakov, the Kuibyshev city procurator. Kazakov asked Davydova about her husband. When she refused Kazakov promised her that “there will be talks for her in other places”.

*

On 29 November 1979, S. Yuzefpolskaya was summoned to see the Assistant Dean for Academic Studies, L.G. Kachedykov. He told her that if she did not take study leave or resign from the university of her own accord she would be expelled.

*

On 30 November 1979, a search was conducted at the home of Olga MUKHINA. During the search Gennady Konstantinov (CCE 51 & CCE 53) dropped by. He was also searched and various items were confdiscated from him: copies of letters from Fyodor Raskolnikov (Ilyn) to Stalin, Mikhail Bulgakov and “To the Soviet Government”; a notebook; and a prescription bearing the stamp of a clinic for venereal skin diseases.

*

On 7 December 1979, Anatoly SARBAYEV (CCE 51 & CCE 53) arrived in Kuibyshev from Vladimir (Central Russia), where he is studying. Investigator Inovlotsky actually met him at the station and had him searched at the station police department.

The following were confiscated: a portable typewriter, the book The Theory and Practice of Anarchism (published in 1919), a book in French, The New Dissidents, an unposted letter addressed to V. Bebko, a notebook, postal receipts and notes (including a page with the inscription ‘Middle Volga Group for the Defence of Human Rights’). After the search Sarbayev was taken to the Procurator’s office for interrogation.

There he was informed that he was suspected of being an accomplice in a crime committed by Victor Davydov. He had to sign statements that he would not leave Kuibyshev, that he would not tell anyone anything he knew about the investigation, and that he would not hinder the investigation. The next day he was summoned to the district KGB for a ‘chat’. This was conducted by S.V. Grishin. On 18 December 1979, Sarbayev was told he was free to leave Kuibyshev.

L. Sarbayeva, S. Yuzefpolskaya, O. Mukhina, G. Konstantinov and N. Romanova have also been summoned for interrogations in connection with the Davydov case. Grishin has joined Inovlotsky for most of the interrogations.

On 19 December 1979, Konstantinov gave Inovlotsky a statement:

“In connection with the violation of codes of procedure during the investigation — when I was illegally and forcibly brought to an interrogation as a witness: I was asked leading questions; threatened with being charged as an accomplice; and references and quotes were given me from the evidence of other witnesses to force me to give the evidence which the investigation needs to convict Ryzhov-Davydov.

“I retract all the evidence that I have given or that I may be asked to give, since I consider that Viktor is an honest man who is incapable of deliberate lies and slander, and I share many of his convictions.”

O. Mukhina sent Inovlotsky a similar statement.

In a statement to the Procurator of Kuibyshev Kazakov, Larissa Sarbayeva wrote in part:

“Up until today I was certain that the law guaranteed me privacy of correspondence. Yet today I had to stand meekly and watch my own letters, papers and diaries, which were afterwards almost all confiscated, being read by the people conducting the search, and even by witnesses …

“Investigator G. I. Inovlotsky reacted in a rather contradictory manner to my protest on this subject, saying first, indifferently: ‘I don’t know anything about it’, and then trying to tell me that Article 135 (the Code of Criminal Procedure) could be interpreted as the right of witnesses to read any confiscated document.

“The above is one of the reasons for my refusal to give evidence in the case of V.V. Ryzhov-Davydov.”

[3]

The Arrest of Kadiyev (Samarkand)

Rollan KADIYEV (CCE 9, CCE 22, CCE 47 & CCE 51), an activist in the Crimean Tatar movement, was helping to pick cotton with his students — he teaches Physics at Samarkand University — when he received information that his flat had been burgled.

Those in charge agreed to let him go home for a couple of days. On his return, a university Party organizer started to rebuke him (in front of the students), in a rude and insulting manner, for his absence. Kadiyev answered the man sharply and struck him. On 28 November 1979, R. Kadiyev was arrested on a charge of “malicious hooliganism.”

[4]

The Arrest of Kalinichenko (Vasilkovka)

On 29 November 1979, Vitaly KALYNYCHENKO (CCE 54), a member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, was arrested in Vasilkovka, Dnepropetrovsk Region (central Ukraine).

[5]

A Search at the Home of Lisovaya (Kiev)

On 29 November Vera Lisovaya’s home in Kiev was searched. Lisovaya is the wife of Vasily Lisovoi (CCE 30 & CCE 54).

[6]

The Arrest of Nekipelov (Kameshkovo)

On 7 December 1979, Victor NEKIPELOV (CCE 54), a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, was arrested in the small town of Kameshkovo, Vladimir Region.

In the morning, while he was at work, a car arrived to collect him. He had time to telephone his wife, Nina Komarova, who saw him being taken away.

She went to the police station and then to the Procurator’s office. In both places she was told that nothing was known about her husband. When she returned to work there was a car waiting for her. KGB officials took her home for a search: 39 items were listed on the search record — several issues of the Chronicle, a typewriter, cassette tapes and manuscripts were confiscated. Some of the items listed related to a large quantity of handwritten texts, up to 90 pages.

Victor A. Nekipelov, 1928-1989

Komarova later discovered that her husband was in Vladimir Prison, charged under Article 70 (RSFSR Criminal Code). Senior Investigator Pleshkov (CCE 32, CCE 34, CCE 41) of the Vladimir KGB is conducting the case.

The following day Pleshkov conducted a search at the home of Malva LANDA (Petushki, Vladimir Region). The searchers were actively helped by witnesses. The search lasted for two hours. There was almost no description of the items taken. M. Landa refused to sign the record. The following articles were confiscated:

• Documents of the Aid Fund for Political Prisoners, in particular a card-index of political prisoners and their relatives’ addresses, information on living conditions in the camps, a card-index of releases and a list of political prisoners for July-September 1979;
• Moscow Helsinki Group documents;
• Statements by workers about bad socio-economic conditions, corruption and violations of law;
• Baptist bulletins, and material published by the The True Witness (Adventist) publishing house;
• Books, journals and newspapers published abroad [tamizdat].

After the search Landa tried unsuccessfully to telephone Andrei SAKHAROV in Moscow. The switchboard operator claimed there was no reply. That day, in fact, the telephone in Sakharov’s flat on that day was working only for outgoing calls.

*

On the same day, 8 December 1979, Valery FEFELOV, a member of the Action Group to Defend the Rights of the Disabled was searched in the town of Yurev-Polsky (Vladimir Region). Pleshkov authorized the search. Among items confiscated were: Action Group papers — questionnaires filled in by disabled people, Information Bulletins, statements, articles, addresses; personal letters; religious literature; and a typewriter. One hundred and thirty points were listed on the record of the search. Point 130 reads, however: “A packet containing letters from inside the Soviet Union, 84 letters…”. Fefelov refused to sign the record, but added in writing his protest against the search.

*

Also on 8 December 1979, Felix SEREBROV wrote an appeal for people to support Victor Nekipelov. On 15 December he sent a letter to the editor of the German daily newspaper Die Welt, describing what had happened to Nekipelov and asking him to inform the public of his fate.

*

On 8 December Nina Komarova wrote “A Statement for Press and Radio”: 

“… When I asked why my husband had been arrested. Senior Investigator Krivov of the Vladimir Regional KGB answered: ‘For activities harmful to the system’.

“Well, so what! I’m content with that answer.

“If the help Victor NEKIPELOV gave to the people who turned to him is termed ‘activities harmful to the system* by a KGB captain, it means we can struggle and that Nekipelov was not a silent witness of evil.

“I appeal to my close friends, to writers and the public in the West, and to the members of the French PEN Club, who made Nekipelov a member of their fraternity, to speak out in his defence and to do everything possible to secure his release.”

On 27 February 1977, Nekipelov received a summons from the Vladimir Region procurator’s office. In response he wrote his appeal “If I Don’t Return”:

“… Will I return? I have every reason to doubt it. This is exactly how, on 11 July 1973, I was invited to the Procurator’s office ‘to sign a search record’. I did not return until exactly two years later.

“I’m not frightened of being imprisoned again, but filled with enormous loathing and purely physical squeamishness …

“I am resolved from the first day not to talk to my fellow-prisoners, nor to sign anything, nor to play their game in any way.

“I shall do all I can not to endanger my friends, even indirectly.

“For their part — I’m thinking of my friends abroad — I ask them to help my wife and little children to leave the country as soon as possible, a country in which there is no truth or justice, nothing but an ideology which crushes everything in its grasp … I ask this simply for the sake of my children.”

On 9 December 1979, Viktor Nekipelov’s eldest son Sergei wrote:

“On that occasion he did return.

“Every day thereafter he put his shaving gear, an English-language textbook and a Bible in his briefcase before leaving for work. Every day he left homw as if for many years…

“He was not afraid of this horror; he walked towards its all-devouring jaws with his head held high. He did not hide from its approach, nor did he withdraw into himself. A poet by calling, he wholeheartedly devoted himself to civic activities. His responsibilities included exhausting journeys to Moscow for Helsinki Group meetings and giving all help possible to dozens of political prisoners in camps and in exile. The problems of disabled people in the USSR took up much of his energy and time. Complete isolation at work, glances in the street, endless searches and threats…

“In spite of all this he did not slow down or give up any of his burden: his work took up every free minute. Then, on 7 December 1979, he picked up his briefcase as usual and went to work. And he did not return.

“So now I am publicizing my father’s three-year-old testament, asking that it be taken as Victor Nekipelov’s last appeal to the international public before his arrest.”

[7]

The Arrest of Solovov (Moscow)

On 12 December 1979, Mikhail Solovov (b. 1949) was arrested in Moscow. The arrest took place after a search, on the record of which 48 points were listed.

Three days earlier the group ‘Election-79’ had been due to meet in Solovov’s flat, but in the morning Solovov was detained by the police who alleged that he looked like a criminal for whom they were searching. Solovov was released only at 6 pm.

Mikhail Solovov had been a sailor on long-distance voyages. In 1978 he was caught trying to bring a book by R. Medvedev into the USSR, for which he was cautioned ‘according to the Decree’® and dismissed from work. In the spring of 1979 Solovov made a speech in a bus about Brezhnev, Stalin and the Soviet people. He was taken to a police station, threatened and released. As far as is known, this incident served as the grounds for his arrest. Solovov has been charged under article 206 part 2 of the the R S F S R Criminal Code (‘malicious hooliganism’). At the present time, Solovov is in the investigations prison on Matrosskaya Tishina Street.

[8]

A Search at the Home of Niklus (Tartu)

On 21 December 1979, in Tartu (Estonia) the home of Mart Niklus (Chronicle 54) was searched on a warrant issued by Major Markevičius of the Lithuanian K G B in connection with Case No, 58 (Chronicle 54).

Among confiscated items were:

• materials about the Petkus case,
• a letter from Niklus to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet concerning the 40th anniversary of the Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact,
• extracts from pre-war Estonian books about Stalin’s acts of repression,
• two articles by Antanas Terleckas,
• photocopies of items in British and Swedish newspapers,
• a copy of the New York Times,
• the brochure Reports from Estonia, published in Estonian in Sweden, and
• a list, enclosed in the brochure, of KGB officials living in Estonia and their addresses. The list was headed, “Muscovite Police Spies in Occupied Estonia Unmasked”.

An envelope containing the brochure and list had arrived by post two days before the search. Letters from Niklus addressed to Sweden and photographs of him with Andrei Sakharov were also confiscated.

Mart Niklus wrote on the record that since he had not been shown the original search warrant (he was shown a Xeroxed copy) he protested against the search and refused to recognize its legality.

*

On 20 November 1979, (a week after his dismissal from his job, CCE 54) Niklus had asked the employment bureau for work in his field but received no answer.

On 22 November he brought an action against the administration. On 30 November the decision to fire him was ruled to be justified. However, an appeals court revoked the decision of the court of the first instance and handed the case back for re-examination. When Niklus asked whether this meant that he could go back to work, the Judge answered that he could be reinstated only with the agreement of the administrators of the courses.

[9]

The Arrest of Regelson (Tallinn)

On 24 December 1979, Muscovite Lev Regelson, a member of the Christian Committee to Defend Believers* Rights in the USSR, was detained on a street in Tallinn on the pretext of a check of his documents, and then arrested. He was informed that the police had been looking for him as he was suspected of foreign currency speculation. He was taken to Moscow and is now in the KGB Investigations Prison (Lefortovo).

============================

NOTES

[1] On 27 October 1979 Victor Ryzhov married and adopted the surname Davydov: see Victor Ryzhov-Davydov, CCE 51.8 & CCE 53.12 (Bebko).