The surnames of the four remaining ‘striped ones’ [1], brought here in October 1978 from Vladimir Prison are Balakin, Verkhov, Zorichev and Chernoglazov (CCE 53).
Zorichev has already been transferred to Mordovian Camp 1.
There are now about 130 prisoners in Chistopol Prison, including 15 sentenced under ‘political’ Articles.
On 5 September 1979, the “Day of the Victims of Red Terror”, the political prisoners staged a hunger-strike. The administration is spreading a rumour that the political prisoners are agents of foreign intelligence services.
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Anatoly SHCHARANSKY’s relatives are pressing for him to be examined and treated in hospital (CCE 53.19).
In October 1979, the Medical Department of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs informed his mother that an order had been given to admit him for examination. On 14 November a therapist, a surgeon and an oculist came from Kazan to examine him. They diagnosed ‘fatigue of the eye muscles’, recommended eye exercises, and prescribed vitamin injections. After this Shcharansky’s relatives were informed that he did not need to go into hospital for an inpatient examination.
On 10 December Mikhail KAZACHKOV (CCE 53.19 & CCE 54) was given seven days in a punishment cell. After that he was put in solitary.
Maigonis RAVINS was taken back to Riga: the journey took more than two months — from 14 July to 17 September 1979. In Riga they tried to recruit him in return for his immediate release. On 19 November he returned to Chistopol (Tatarstan).
In November Lev LUKYANENKO’s scheduled ‘long’ visit was cancelled.
His wife Nadezhda Lukyanenko appealed to the Camp Administration and to the Main Administration for Collective-Labour Institutions in Moscow, asking to be allowed to send her husband a small parcel: pants, a T-shirt, socks, mittens and an electric shaver.
In accordance with the Corrective-Labour Code, Lukyanenko should not be allowed his first parcel until December 1982. Both organisations turned down her request. Most of the letters she sends her husband are confiscated.
Mordovian camp in winter
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Camp 3
When Camp 19 was closed down (CCE 54), Akper RADZHABOV was among those transferred here.
On 30 October 1979, “Political Prisoners Day”, Nazaryan, Soldatov, Popadyuk, Osipov and Rudenko staged a hunger-strike. On 10 December 1979, “Human Rights Day”, Nazaryan, Soldatov and Popadyuk staged a hunger-strike (Osipov had a visitor and Rudenko was in Saransk).
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PERM
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Camp 35
Between January and November 1979, the mother of N. MATUSEVICH sent him 44 letters; he was given 30 of them. His sister T. Matusevich sent him 36 letters; he was given 24. In the autumn P. PLUMPA was banned from receiving parcels.
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Camp 36
M. MARINOVICH was in the punishment cells from June to December 1979 (CCE 53).
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On 4 December 1979, Sergei KOVALYOV’s wife (Ludmila Boitsova) and son Ivan arrived for a short visit.
It turned out that the visit had been cancelled on 30 November because KOVALYOV had ‘deliberately’ not fulfilled his work norm. According to the administration, about two months earlier Kovalyov was transferred to a job that was new to him (CCE 54). Every shift he was to put 780 machine parts together. Kovalyov managed to do 350-400. Captain Borisov, deputizing that day for the camp director, told Kovalyov’s wife and son that a number of prisoners (including Kovalyov), were deliberately not fulfilling the norm: this was despite the administration showing prisoners that it was possible to fulfil it by inviting some ‘specialists’ to work a shift with them. The ‘specialists’ fulfilled the norm. Kovalyov said he could not do it: according to Borisov, it should take only three days to learn the operation.
Sergei A. Kovalyov, 1930-2021
No letters have been received from Kovalyov since September 1979: even after the ban on correspondence (CCE 54) was lifted, only one letter and a telegram were received. The administration maintains that Kovalyov has not handed in any letters to be posted. His relatives think this may mean a renewed ban on his correspondence.
According to some sources Kovalyov spent 20 days, in October and November 1979, in the cooler.
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On 5 December 1979, Ludmila Boitsova and Ivan Kovalyov sent a statement to the USSR Procurator’s Office demanding urgent intervention. The statement ends thus:
“We again state: Kovalyov has been refused visits on absurd grounds. This was clearly deliberate. We demand the cancellation of the relevant resolutions and a restoration of the visits. We would also like to be informed what other punishments, apart from the ban on visits, Kovalyov has had during the period August to December 1979.”
On 27 December 1979, Ivan Kovalyov issued a statement:
“An ‘ Especially Dangerous’ Freedom It is for five years today that my father Sergei Adamovich KOVALYOV has been behind bars.
“He was deprived of freedom because he dared, and was able, to defend freedom — his own and that of others. But no jailers can deprive him of the most important freedom — the inner one. And in spite of any number of obstacles — fences the height of three men, ‘ordinary’ barbed wire, electrified wire, barbed-wire meshes and the ploughed-up ‘forbidden zone’ strip — all the same, he remains free, which means that he remains ‘especially dangerous’.
“Unconcerned about his own well-being, he stood up for the persecuted while he himself was still at liberty. And at his trial he tried to defend — not himself, but the Chronicle of Current Events from fabricated charges of libel. At one of our camp meetings, when he was seriously ill and did not know whether we would see each other again, he spent our last minutes together talking not about himself but about Slobodyan, who was also sick.
“And this is why every word he utters is ‘dangerous’. And this is why they deprive him of every right, leave him to rot, do everything they can to force him to be silent!
“We are forbidden to see him; our correspondence is confiscated; they lie insolently to our faces. But all the same little grains of information about him reach us. We know that he has remained himself even in camp — kind, sympathetic and untainted, continuing, whatever his surroundings, to do that which he considers his moral duty.
“I am proud of my father. Remember him today.”
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Camp 37
On 20 October 1979, after five years of imprisonment, Ganibari MUKHAMETSHIN (trial, CCE 37) was sent off for his two years of exile. His camp term expired on 25 November but on 31 December 1979 he was still in transit in the Far East, at Magadan Prison.
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IN OTHER PRISONS AND CAMPS
On 22 December 1979, Alexander BOLONKIN (CCE 53) was taken to hospital with appendicitis and a high temperature. He also has bronchitis and inflammation of the gall-bladder.
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On 21 December 1979, Lev VOLOKHONSKY (CCE 54) arrived at a camp in the Volga Okrug: 618320, Perm Region, Kizel, penal institution VV-201/1.
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Nikolai NIKITIN has been held at the Kresty (‘Crosses’) Prison in Leningrad since his trial (CCE 54).
He has been applying unsuccessfully to have someone examine him for tuberculosis. In protest he began a new hunger-strike on 10 December 1979. Nikitin has a bullet in his lung and his liver was shot through in an accident in the Army. He also has a bad heart.
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On 25 November 1979, Josif ZISELS returned from hospital (CCE 54) to the camp.
The examination confirmed the earlier conclusion: he had scars from an ulcer, should do limited physical labour, and observe a special diet. The next day, Zisels was dispatched to the cooler to serve the 15-day sentence he had been given on 10 November. He was let out on 12 December 1979.
Zisels has received an answer to the statement which he sent to the Ukrainian Procurator’s Office on 1 October 1979 (CCE 54). It came from the Chernovtsy Region Procurator’s office and was signed by Deputy Regional Procurator M.K. Pashkovsky: “Your version of events has not been confirmed.”
During Zisels’s absence his own notes on his case, together with statements, addresses and personal comments disappeared. The administration is trying to recruit prisoners to give evidence against Zisels. Zisels’s next scheduled long visit has been cancelled.
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Former political prisoner Taras MELNICHUK has been sentenced to four years under Article 206 part 2 (Ukrainian SSR Criminal Code: “malicious hooliganism”). He is now in a camp in western Ukraine: 287100, Vinnitsa, penal institution IV-301/8.
Melnichuk was arrested in March 1979 (CCE 53).
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Igor POLYAKOV (trial, CCE 54) is serving his sentence in central Russia (601400, Vladimir Region, Vyazniki, penal institution OD-1/4-8-32).
He works as duty electrician in a workshop. There is no safety equipment there and machine repairs have to be undertaken without switching off the high industrial current. The work is in two shifts: 6 am-2 pm and 3 pm-11 pm. There is often trouble (fights, even murders) among the prisoners in the camp.
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The Baptists P.I. KRAVCHUK and F.A. KORKODILOV are not allowed to send or receive letters in which Holy Writ is quoted.
Every letter written by Baptist Pyotr PETERS (CCE 53) has to be checked by the security section as well as the normal censor. First, Lieutenant Gulko told Peters that he will not pass any letter which mentions God or quotes from the Bible. Peters does not receive any letters from his mother as she writes in German and, so Peters was informed, there is no translator.
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Baptist Ya.G. SKORNYAKOV (trial, CCE 53) is serving his sentence in Kazakhstan (Dzhambul, penal institution ZhD-158/4). He is not at all well. In one of her statements to the highest official bodies his wife N.S. Skornyakova writes:
“Since the last visit we have been very worried about his health. After all, there is still a long time ahead of him …
“Considering the conditions there and his age and illness, I cannot help but think that he may not live to leave the camp.”
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IN DEFENCE OF POLITICAL PRISONERS
From a letter written by Irina Valitova on 30 November 1979:
“During a long visit to my husband [Yury ORLOV], he said bitterly on 21 August that he had no chance of sending an already finished article to a scientific journal or even of handing it to us, his relatives. This is what he told us about his article:
Yury F. Orlov, 1924-2020
‘For the moment I’m quite content with it. True, it’s probably still too early to judge whether my model will stand up to being tested. But I think that the attempt to construct a consistent, scientific, physical — i.e. quantitative — model of psychological and spiritual phenomena has a role to play in science. But of course, and I do understand this, it still has to be finished.
‘Even if it bears no relation to reality, it has heuristic value and it’s important to me because I’ve touched in some ways on ideas developed in my former work. Of course, a lot remains unclear. For example, the concrete mechanism of poor resolving capability is not completely clear when one is talking about conceptions linked to the inner convictions of a subject. Maybe this is worth mentioning in a future note.’
“Not long ago my husband tried to send his scientific article out of the camp. The attempt failed and the paper was confiscated. At an interrogation KGB officials said to my husband; ‘Orlov, forget that you’re a scientist! You’re never going to leave here.’
“The authorities hate my husband, but at the same time they fear him; they subject him to severe pressures to revenge themselves for the fact that they cannot force him to be silent. For he continues the fight in the camp. His only weapons there are his intelligence and his pen.
“My husband has written a long article in which he gives evidence as a witness and observer. In it he pays particular attention to the analysis and demonstration of reasons for the loss of moral and ethical principles, for the growth of criminality, and for the harsh conditions of imprisonment. He does this not just for political prisoners, but for all inmates, for the inhuman principle of ‘re-education’ in the camps where each man treats the other as a wolf, and for the great length of prison sentences.
“In the camp, drawing on his own experience, my husband confirms that the information collected by the Moscow Helsinki Group is correct.
“I appeal to the scientific world to intervene for my husband, not to let him die before his sentence expires. Suppression of his intellect and gradual physical annihilation — this is the sentence passed on Yury Fedorovich ORLOV.”
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RELEASES
Yulia OKULOVA-VOZNESENSKAYA [2] was released in June at the end of a two-year sentence.
N.P. SHATALOV (trial, CCE 51) was released in July at the end of an 18-month sentence (see also “The Right to Leave” in this issue, CCE 55.8).
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Artyom YUSKEVICH and Mati KIIREND (trial, CCE 38.4) were released in Tallinn on 13 December 1979 at the end of five-year sentences.
Yuskevich was despatched from Perm Camp 36 on 19 October 1979 (CCE 54). He was brought to Tallinn on 31 October. In Tallinn Prison he was held in an unheated cell: the administration explained that the heating was not working ‘because of repairs’.
On 28 December 1979, Yuskevich was placed under administrative surveillance for one year.
Forbidden to leave Tallinn, he has to be at home between 10 pm and 6 am. After 6 pm he is not allowed to visit public places in which spirits are drunk. Once a week he must report to a police station.
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NOTES
Striped one or “stripie” refers to distinctive garments of prisoners in special-regime zones or camps. ↩︎
Julia Okulova-Voznesenskaya: date trial, Vorkuta (CCE 46.15); in Relef Fund’s list of prisoners (CCE 46.23); atrocity in transit (CCE 47.9); east Siberian camp (CCE 48.10). ↩︎
A Chronicle of Current Events 