Camps & Prisons, 1978-1979 (52.5-2)

<<No 52 : 1 March 1979>>

5-1. Chistopol Prison. Mordovia. Perm: Camp 35, Diary of Camp 35
5-2. Perm Camp 36; Cooler & Punishment cells. Other prisons and camps
5-3. Letters & Statements. In Defence of Political Prisoners. Releases

3. Perm (continued)

3.2: Camp 36

Yevhen Sverstyuk’s seven-year term (CCE 33.6-3 [38]) ended on 14 January 1979. On 17 February he arrived in his place of exile: Buryatia, Bagdarin, 63 Zhdanov Street, flat 2. He must spend five years in exile.

Bolonkin served his term of exile in Bagdarin (CCE 49.7, CCE 51.7).

On 10 January 1979, Alexander Sergienko (CCE 30.8) was dispatched on his journey into exile in the Soviet Far East. He arrived there on 24 February. He had spent seven years in camp and still has three years of exile to serve. His address: Khabarovsk Region (Krai), Ayano-Maisky district, Ayan village. The village is by the Sea of Okhotsk and is within the border zone; visitors must obtain a special pass to go there.

On 15 February, after completing his six-year sentence, Vladimir Marmus was dispatched into exile from the punishment cells in Camp 36. He will serve his exile term in west Siberia, in the same village as his brother, Nikolai Marmus, who left Camp 37 in April 1978 [¹]: Tyumen Region, Isetsky district, Shorokhovo village.

4. Conditions in the cooler and punishment cells

4.1: Camp 35 (Perm Complex)

The maximum term in the cooler (‘kartser’ or `SHIZO’) is 15 days, but this can be reimposed, so that prisoners sometimes receive 30 or even more days.

The usual terms in the punishment cells (‘PKT’ or ‘cell-type premises’) are three or six months.

The camp prison building (cooler and punishment cells) was constructed without a damp-proof course between the walls and the foundations.

Consequently in the cells, especially Nos. 2 and 13 (those at either end), the lower part of the walls and part of the floor never dry out. Water often streams down the walls. Higher up the walls it is always damp in the corners. There is ice on the walls in the winter.

Sometimes even the water in the jug freezes.

There is always a foul smell in the cells, since the toilet has no flushing mechanism. The smell becomes particularly strong when the cesspit is being cleared out. Water to flush the toilet is turned on in the corridor by the guard on duty, at the request of the prisoners. This often requires a lot of insistence. There is a small hinged window for ventilation. It is impossible to open it fully because of the bars on the outside, besides which the cell gets cold very quickly. In the summer there are swarms of flies and mosquitoes.

Dead mosquitoes are sometimes the cause of an additional period in the cooler — for “unsanitary conditions in the cell”. The cells are cramped. The only available space to walk in is three paces long. The total area of a cell is 11 square metres (2.5 sq. m. per person and another 1 sq. m. for what serves as the toilet, a bucket and a washstand). The floors are made of wooden boards, with many gaps between them.

A cooler cell’s entire ‘furnishing’ consists of a stone table, supported on one thick leg, which looks like a large mushroom, and four stone posts to sit on. It is impossible to eat at this table, since the stone posts are situated too far away. Consequently, many prisoners squat in front of a stone stool and place their bowl of gruel on top of it.

When the bunks are let down at night, the lower bunks rest on these stone posts (during the day they are up against the wall and locked in position). The punishment cells are a little more ‘comfortable’: there is a cupboard on the wall for crockery, coat hooks and a small table. Moreover, the prisoners succeeded in getting wooden planks fixed across the stone posts, which makes them into benches.

The daily regime in the cooler differs markedly from that in the punishment cells.

Prisoners in the cooler are issued with thin cotton clothing which is already worn out and invariably the wrong size. There are usually no buttons, everything is held together with string. If the temperature in the cell falls below the regulation level of 18° Centigrade [64° Fahrenheit] the prisoner can campaign for a pea-jacket. To do this he must first get someone to measure the temperature. At night, when it is coldest, this is impossible. The administration’s thermometer, moreover, gives unrealistically high readings and the guards constantly ‘forget’ about this fault.

In the cooler bed linen and mattresses are not allowed, the beds are knocked together from planks of varying width and are difficult to sleep on.
The prisoners are not taken out for exercise; in the punishment cells the exercise period is one hour.
The crockery is taken away after meals and kept in a cupboard in the corridor. The prisoners’ toiletry requisites are also kept in this cupboard.
Books and notebooks are forbidden in the cooler; prisoners in punishment cells are allowed books and notebooks and may use the library.
Writing letters is forbidden; one letter every two months may be sent from a punishment cell.
Prisoners in the cooler are only allowed to receive incoming correspondence and publications that they have subscribed to. The guards, however, often “do not know* this rule.
It is forbidden to use the camp shop; prisoners in punishment cells may spend two roubles a month. Visits, parcels and packets of printed matter are forbidden, both in the cooler and in the punishment cells.
A stay in the cooler may also include going to work. In such cases the food ration is the same as in the punishment cells.
Prisoners who refuse to work are punished with an additional period in the cooler. In the punishment cells work is compulsory. No privileges are granted for overfulfilled norms, but under fulfilment results in a decreased food ration (no sugar and significantly less of everything else).

Hot food is given on alternate days.

A sample daily menu:

150 grams of bread and a bowl of greasy soup in the morning;
200 grams of bread, soup, and about five spoonfuls of buckwheat as a second course at midday;
in the evening 100 grams of bread and a small piece of fish weighing 30-40 grams (usually rotten).

The following day the prisoner is given 450 grams of bread, 20 grams of salt and some hot water. The ‘hot’ food and ‘hot’ water are usually brought to the cooler barely warm.

The camp administration and the Regional Procurator’s Office consider that the conditions in the cooler “fully conform to the established norms”. The camp Head, A. G. Zhuravkov, even said once: “The conditions are simply ideal”.

The cooler in Camp 36 is more bearable than the one in Camp 37.

The prison building in Camp 37 is made of wood, with numerous gaps, so that it is constantly draughty. Instead of lavatory pans there are latrine buckets.

The lighting consists of a single small bulb over the door, which serves as the night-light. Therefore, there is not enough light to read by in the evening; it is possible to read only standing by the door. At night the light makes it difficult to sleep.

***

In Camp 36, besides the ‘general’ diary, a “Diary of the Cooler and Punishment Cells” was also produced during the past autumn and winter. We publish here, under that title, those parts of it which supplement the “Diary of Camp 36” (published in CCE 51.9-1).

The Chronicle thought it appropriate to combine the later part, which is more fragmentary, with the ‘general’ diary of Camp 36, which follows.

4.2: Diary of cooler and punishment cells

September-October 1978

SEPTEMBER

13. Žukauskas found a white worm in his soup.

26. He found a black insect 1.5 cm long in his bowl. This discovery was immediately reported to Captain Nelipovich.

27. In punishment cell No. 6 the temperature was officially measured as 12° Centigrade [54°F].

28. Captain Fyodorov promised to have the temperature raised to 18° Centigrade [64°F].

29. The morning temperature in the cells was 12 degrees Centigrade. Second blankets and padded trousers were issued. Heaters were placed in the rooms of the duty guards. In the evening the temperature in the cells was 11 degrees Centigrade.

30. The temperature was 11 degrees Centigrade, morning and evening.

OCTOBER

1. 11.5 degrees Centigrade.

2. A 500-watt heater was put in cell No. 6. (Žukauskas, Gluzman, Marmus). The temperature, both morning and evening, was 12 degrees Centigrade.

Zukauskas was asked to sign a document in which his output was stated to be ten times lower than it was. He refused.

3. 4-kw heaters were placed in all the cells. The second blankets and padded trousers were taken away.

10. Popadichenko was transferred from the punishment cells to the cooler for five days, for trying to persuade a guard to bring him a kilogram of sweets.

Balakhonov refused to attend voluntarily a meeting of the camp Education Commission. On the orders of Nikomarov he was taken by force.

16. Kazachkov was deprived of access to the camp shop; he was a few minutes late in getting up and going out. In October they began to create such ‘violations’ artificially, deliberately putting out the light a few minutes early and immediately making a report against those who were not quick enough. Ensign Mokhnutin (in CCE 51.9-1 his name is spelt wrongly [Makhmutov], Chronicle) is particularly guilty in this respect. He is greatly favoured by the officials. He reports to the administration about other warders, sells food for cash in the camp, and spreads rumours.

17. Sergienko asked to be separated from Popadichenko due to the incompatibility of their personalities. After the exercise period he was forcibly pushed into the cell; Popadichenko demanded that they stop the violence.

19. Sergienko was sentenced to 15 days in the cooler for refusing to carry out an order, The administrative commission issued Popadichenko with a reprimand.

23. Popadichenko was sent to the cooler for nine days. He was put in a cell with Sergienko.

Gluzman, Žukauskas and Marmus complained to the chief doctor of the Chusovoi Health and Infection Centre that the food in the cooler was distributed by prisoner Katok, who worked in the camp sanitary brigade. That same day Katok stopped distributing the food.

22. Fyodorov ordered that paper and pencils be issued in the punishment cells for only one hour a day.

23. A thorough search in the cells. Mokhnutin looked for hiding places. In cell No. 2 they tore up a floorboard. Nothing was found.

More worms in the soup.

30. Political Prisoners’ Day. Balakhonov, Gluzman, Grigoryan, Žukauskas, Zalmanson, Ismagilov, Kazachkov, Marmus, Popadichenko, Sergienko sent statements to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet.

DIARY OF CAMP 36

December 1978 to February 1979

DECEMBER 1978

1. In connection with the transfer of prisoners to cramped accommodation, Grigoryan, Zalmanson, Kovalyov, Marinovich, Mättik, Pronyuk, Sarkisyan, Sverstyuk and Yuskevich sent statements to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, proposing that the right to air be incorporated in the Constitution. Later the statements were confiscated, on the grounds that they distorted the reality of camp conditions.

3. Grigoryan was reprimanded for swearing at Captain Chugainov.

8. All the above-mentioned prisoners wrote to the camp Head announcing their intention to celebrate Human Rights Day. The same evening the prisoners got together to drink tea in celebration.

They exchanged views on the history of basic concepts in the field of human rights; on the juridical meaning of the rights and freedom of the individual, and on how to guarantee them; on national and international democratic organizations, etc. The officers and warders on duty were present during the conversation, but limited themselves to asking the prisoners to disperse.

12 December. Zalmanson was told that letters from N. Khasina and M. Kremen (Moscow) had been confiscated.

14. It was announced that letters to Marinovich from his mother and from O. Matusevich (Kiev) and to Trofimov from his mother in Moscow, had been confiscated.

15. After six months’ imprisonment, Gluzman emerged from the punishment cells (CCE 51.9-1).

18. Surovtsev (KGB) asked Strotsen (sentenced to 25 years for being a member of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army [UPA]) to appeal for clemency, but he refused. Chepkasov (KGB), in conversation with Grigoryan, expressed concern at the latter’s evolution towards the dissidents.

20. Marinovich was warned against wearing a moustache. For not fulfilling the norm Pronyuk was given extra duties.

22. Ismagilov was brought here from hospital. Marinovich was told that a letter from T. Matusevich (Kiev) had been confiscated.

24. R. Gaiduk was brought here from Chistopol Prison after three years’ imprisonment.

The temperature in the living quarters dropped sharply (in the living section to 16° Centigrade, in the workshop to 6° Centigrade). The camp’s Deputy Head for Regime, Major Fyodorov, chased out those who were warming themselves in the cloakroom, saying; ‘Off you go, to the workshop! * In connection with this, and with the low temperature and damp in the cooler, Grigoryan, Zalmanson, Marinovich, Mättik, Sverstyuk and Yuskevich sent statements to various official bodies; these were later confiscated, on the grounds that they did not correspond to the truth.

Because of the low temperature in the workshop the prisoners are not fulfilling the norm.

26. Sverstyuk was sent to the cooler for IS days.

The temperature in the living quarters is 13° Centigrade, and in the workshop 40 degrees Centigrade.

27. 5° Centigrade [41° Fahrenheit] in the workshop.

1979

JANUARY

2. The temperature in the living quarters is 17 degrees Centigrade, in the workshop 8° Centigrade.

The camp Head, chasing prisoners out of the warm cloakroom, said; ‘Quick march to the workshop. I am not obliged to create working conditions for you. I am obliged to make you work.’ Reports were made out against Gluzman, Zalmanson, Pronyuk and Yuskevich, for not fulfilling the norm. Grigoryan, Gluzman, Zalmanson, Kovalyov, Marinovich, Mättik, Pronyuk, Sarkisyan and Yuskevich sent statements to the Perm procurator’s office, demanding that a representative be sent to the camp. A one-day hunger-strike was staged to support this demand.

5. Gluzman was told that a letter from Drugova in Moscow had been confiscated.

8. Gluzman was dispatched under guard. Before his departure he announced his intention to go on hunger-strike until the end of his sentence in protest against an attempt to prevent his father’s death. Gluzman became entitled to a visit after 15 December. His father wrote that he intended to come on the 25th. It later became clear from letters that his father had received no reply by 25 December to his request for this visit.

E. Pronyuk was put in the punishment cells for six months. He was faced with a whole series of trumped-up charges; sabotage, disorganizing work, inciting other prisoners to violate the regime, etc.

Grigoryan, Zalmanson, Marinovich, Trofimov and Yuskevich were reported on 8 and 9 January for not fulfilling the norm (during their hunger-strike). Ismagilov was reprimanded for his refusal to work (he demands to be given work that takes account of his state of health).

10 January. Sergienko left the punishment cells for his journey into exile. Two days earlier, in response to his demand that he be provided with transport by ambulance to the railway station (Sergienko complained of exhaustion) he was taken to the town of Chusovoi and back to the punishment cells in an ordinary ‘Black Maria*.

11 January. Ismagilov was deprived of access to the camp shop, and of a parcel, for refusing to work.

12 January. E. Pronyuk was transferred to a decreased food ration (*9b* — food on alternate days) for not fulfilling the norm.

E. Sverstyuk declared a hunger-strike in protest against the administration’s refusal to allow prisoners access to the camp shop before a journey. E. Pronyuk and V. Marmus declared a hunger-strike in support of Sverstyuk’s demand. Sverstyuk was allowed to go to the shop and was dispatched [into exile] under guard on the same day.

13 January. S. Žukauskas was transferred to food ration ’9b’.

15 January. S. Žukauskas, V. Marmus and I. Popadichenko sent letters of complaint to the procurator’s office (with copies to the medical department of the Perm Regional Administration for Corrective Labour Institutions) regarding the transfer of E. Pronyuk to a decreased food ration (‘9b’). The copies sent to the medical department were confiscated.

17 January. Popadichenko was transferred to ‘9b’ for failing to fulfil the norm.

The Perm Regional Procurator, Yazev, received a group of prisoners. He confirmed that the administration was obliged to ensure normal temperatures in the living and working quarters, although he avoided giving a direct answer to the question of whether it was legal to punish prisoners for not fulfilling the norm in the cold workshop.

The Procurator listened to the prisoners’ complaints and promised to answer them.

18 January. The Armenian G. S. Avakyan and U. M. Ilyasov from Dagestan were brought here.

They were sentenced in April 1978 to 15 years each for attending a Caucasian spy school during the German occupation (this was a second sentence for both of them, based on newly uncovered evidence; the sentences they had already served were taken into account).

19 January. Žukauskas was sentenced to five days in the cooler for refusing to work. K« lonagilov was also put in the cooler for five days for refusing to work. He was on hunger-strike throughout the five days.

20 January. Monastyrsky was brought here from hospital; Tamoyan was dispatched under guard from Camp 35.

Gaiduk, Grigoryan, Zalmanson, Kovalyov, Marinovich, Mattik, Sarkisyan, Yuskevich and also Monastyrsky staged a one-day hunger-strike and sent statements (Kovalyov sent his letter) to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, in protest against the imprisonment of women and old men in camps (Gaiduk and Zalmanson only mentioned women in their statements).

23 January. The following letters were confiscated: to Kovalyov from Sakharov, to Abankin, sometime previously, from his son, to Marinovich from Valentina Chornovil (Cherkassy Region).

At the end of January Sarkisyan was summoned for an interview with KGB officials in connection with his expressed wish to live in the town of Tanisa after his release. Major Afanasov (of the Skalny KGB) asked whether Sarkisyan knew that Ginzburg, Marchenko, Lyubarsky and similar people had lived in Tarusa. *We won’t let you go to Tarusa,* said Afanasov. ‘We’ll send you to Erevan,’ he declared, bringing the conversation to a close.

24 January. A sharp drop in temperature in the punishment cells and the cooler. In cell No. 2 the temperature is only just above 0°. The walls and bunks are covered with frost. The guards refuse to measure the temperature.

25 January. E. Pronyuk was reprimanded for not fulfilling the norm.

26 January. Žukauskas and Marmus were transferred from cell No. 2 to cell No. 1 to join Popadichenko and E. Pronyuk (to make it warmer).

27 January. Žukauskas was once again put in the cooler for five days for not going to work.

31 January. Valery Marchenko was brought here from Camp 35. He is being kept ‘in quarantine’ in the cooler.

FEBRUARY

01. Yevhen Pronyuk was deprived of access to the camp shop for not fulfilling the norm.

02. Žukauskas was punished with 15 days in the cooler for not going to work for the third time.

Ismagilov was put in the cooler for five days for refusing to work (his refusal was motivated by the low temperature).

03. Marchenko was allowed into the zone. Mättik was transferred to Camp 35.

06. Surovtsev (KGB) told Marinovich that the number of letters he would receive ‘depends on your behaviour* — i.e. on his readiness to cooperate with the KGB.

12. The following letters were confiscated: to Grigoryan from Yu. Dzyuba; to Marinovich from his mother, from Kalynets and from O. Matusevich (Kiev); to Trofimov from his mother; to Yuskevich — two letters from Estonia; Marchenko’s statement to Brezhnev was confiscated.

15. Their terms of imprisonment completed, Žukauskas, Marmus and Sarkisyan were dispatched under guard to their places of exile. Marchenko was taken to Perm (where he was put in a prison hospital, Chronicle).

Kovalyov was reprimanded for insulting Major Zhuravkov.

According to Zhuravkov, the insult consisted in Kovalyov asking him to stop interfering with his work and saying that Zhuravkov was not his boss in the boiler room. After the reprimand, Zhuravkov and Nelipovich, Deputy Camp Head for political matters, proposed that Kovalyov should join the section responsible for general food supplies. The same day this proposal, which was supported by the prisoners, was repeated by Captain Belov at a section meeting. Kovalyov gave his preliminary assent, on the condition that he would actually be able to exercise control — for example in checking the invoices.

18. Grigoryan was issued a reprimand for not making his bed.

19. During a conversation with Grigoryan, Chepkasov (KGB) expressed interest in what the prisoners intended to do in connection with the execution of Zatikyan and others.

23. Kovalyov and Marinovich were reported for being absent from their work-places for 21 minutes (on a day when both had overfulfilled the norm).

In February Kovalyov was transferred from the boiler house to the assembly workshop. He now works on contact breakers. The most probable reason for the transfer is that he was too conscientious in keeping the duty register and noted down all the faults in the heating system.

On 23 December 1978, after three years imprisonment, Roman Gaiduk arrived in the camp from Chistopol Prison. His camp sentence of five years ends on 23 March 1979 (not in February as erroneously stated in CCE 51.9-1).

3.3: Camp 37

On 15 February 1979, after seven years in camp, Vasily Dolishny was sent to exile in Kazakhstan. He has to serve three years in exile. His address: Karaganda Region, Yegindybulaksky district, s/z Komsomolsky.

In the winter of 1978, the temperature in the living barracks was officially noted as 14° degrees Centrigrade in the daytime and 8° degrees at night.

During Yury Orlov’s transfer from Camp 35 to Camp 37 (CCE 51.9-1) a copy of the indictment in his case was taken from him.

The letters and scientific journals sent to Orlov from abroad do not reach him.

During her visit his wife Irina Valitova was not allowed to give him a packet of blank paper, essential for his scientific work. “You are not in a sanatorium, Orlov”, he was told after this incident by the Head of the Operations Section. On one occasion, during a break from work, when Orlov tried to make some notes of a scientific nature, these were immediately taken from him. The administration promised to return the notes to Orlov after the dinner break, but did not do so. In protest, Orlov refused to return to work after dinner (this was one of the violations listed in CCE 51.9-1). Orlov received from the USSR procurator’s office a reply regarding the scientific papers taken from him in Moscow’s Lefortovo Investigations Prison (CCE 51.9-1, CCE 51.20-2): “Confiscated in accordance with the law.” His wife, who had requested that the papers in question be either returned to Orlov or given to her, was informed by the USSR procurator’s office that her statement would be examined by the KGB.

In November Orlov had influenza twice, but the camp Head would not allow his wife to give him woollen socks when she came to visit him.

Orlov has finished his training as a lathe operator and must now fulfil the norm. From his wife Irina Valitova’s press statement:

“At the moment he is unable to fulfil the norm. He is very tired, he doesn’t get enough sleep. The hard physical work, the harsh camp conditions and routine make it practically impossible for him to pursue his scientific work. They can take his notes away from him at any moment and destroy them. It is a miracle that he is continuing to work. Spiritually, Orlov is unbroken. In the camp there is simply no quiet place for him to work; in the barracks the loudspeaker is plugged in from morning till night, in the refectory it is also noisy, the library is nearly always shut, and there is nowhere else to go. He can think only while walking round the barracks in the hours when he is not working.

“Yury Orlov is a scientist with great creative potential. To deprive a person of the opportunity to create is to deprive him of life. Spiritual and intellectual murder — this is the sentence planned for and carried out on Yury Orlov.

“I ask scientists not to give up their efforts to save Orlov and not to permit his spiritual and physical annihilation.”

***

In May 1978 Yu. Butchenko and Ramzik Markosyan were brought here from Camp 35 to serve their sentences in the cooler. Butchenko served 15 and Markosyan 25 days.

On 23 July 1978 M. Ravins was given four months in the punishment cells for a fight with some informers. On completion of his term he was sent to the prison hospital in Leningrad.

On 7 September 1978 Belov was punished with five days in the cooler for keeping his hands in his pockets during a search. On 12 September he was sentenced to another five days for inciting other prisoners to go on hunger-strike.

Sergei Kovalyov’s 10-day hunger-strike, begun on 25 September (CCE 51.9-1), was in defence of M. Ravins.

On 8 January S. Gluzman was transferred here from Camp 36 (see ‘Diary of Camp 36′). Directly on his arrival he was informed of a resolution to put him in the punishment cells for four months and three days (i.e. until the end of his sentence on 11 May). No specific charges were mentioned in the resolution. It was stated only that on 29 November 1978, during a search in the camp work zone, a cache containing a variety of anti-Soviet materials, including some belonging to Gluzman, was discovered. Gluzman sent several carefully reasoned statements to the Regional procurator’s office, in which he pointed out the blatant violation of the law by the camp administration and demanded that the resolution be made more specific.

On 22 and 23 January Procurator Yazev visited Gluzman. He told him that the resolution was legal and that Gluzman would be informed of the specific charges in the event of a *case^ being brought against him. He also hinted that if Gluzman continued to press for a more precise resolution, a case would be brought against him. At this time a reply also arrived from the Perm procurator’s office (from Myakishev). Gluzman was simply told, without reasons given, that he was wrong, and that the administration had not broken the law (see also ‘Letters and Statements of Political Prisoners*).

Throughout this time Gluzman continued the hunger-strike he had begun on 8 January, before he found out about the decision to put him in the punishment cells (see ‘Diary of Camp 36’). He was force- fed for the first time on 18 January, the tenth day of his hunger- strike, after which he was force-fed, on average, three times a week.

On 1 February the Moscow Helsinki Group published a statement in defence of Gluzman (Document No. 80). It was also signed by more than 30 others.

3.4: The Hospital

Prisoners who fall ill in the Perm camps are sent to the camp medical block; the more severe cases (sometimes for ‘operational reasons’ see the case of Airikyan, above) are sent to the so-called ‘central hospital’, which is situated inside Camp 35 (but isolated from it). The prisoners travel to the hospital in ordinary closed vans, although special transport should be provided.

The hospital is a small two-storey building with a relatively clean interior. The patients are divided into three groups, which are kept separately from each other. Almost all the time they are kept in locked wards, which doctors and nurses enter only when accompanied by an ensign. A two-hour exercise period is permitted.

The staff consists of the camp doctor Yu. Sh. Sheliya (a witness at the trial of Yu. Orlov, CCE 50.1; he was assigned to work in the camp hospital after graduating as a surgeon in 1976); Dr T. N. Chepkasova (a physician); and a small number of nurses. The nurses are officially supposed to be in the hospital from 8 am to 8 pm; there is no night shift. The hospital’s scanty equipment allows only simple operations and tests to be performed. Doctors from the Chusovoi City Hospital are brought in for consultations and in the event of more serious operations.

Recently the supply of medicines has slightly improved.

On 9 November M. Slobodyan (CCE 48.10-2, CCE 49.8-1, CCE 51.9-1) was taken from the hospital to an unknown destination.

4. Other Prisons and Camps

KIRILL PODRABINEK

On 30 January 1979 Kirill PODRABINEK (CCE 49.1, CCE 51.9-2), imprisoned in the town of Yelets (Lipetsk Region), was allowed a visit from his father Pinkhos.

Podrabinek was in the prison medical block at the time, diagnosed as suffering from ‘pneumonia’. During the previous month he had a constant subfebrile temperature with an increased white-cell count (12,000). He was wracked with alternate bouts of shivering and feverishness, and was in a very weakened condition. He was being given treatment, 200,000 units of penicillin four times a day.

On his return from the visit, Pinkhos Podrabinek wrote to the International Red Cross, Amnesty International and the International Committee for the Defence of the Podrabinek Brothers [CCE 50.7], describing his son’s state of health, expressing concern at the poor treatment he was receiving and voicing the possibility that he had tuberculosis.

***

YEVGENY BUZINNIKOV

On his journey to the camps, which began on 9 September, Yevgeny BUZINNIKOV (trial CCE 51.3) stayed in seven transit prisons.

In the Bryansk Prison Buzinnikov spent the night on a bare iron bed, in a cell with broken windows.

For the one-day journey to Voronezh the prisoners were not given any food. They spent four days in Voronezh, in a cell similar to the one in Bryansk, but some prisoners were forced to sleep on the bare floor.

At Saratov the guards greeted the prisoners with insults, beating them with their rifle butts and even stabbing at them with their bayonets. The convoy spent the first night in Saratov transit prison in a cold cell, without mattresses. Then they were transferred to an unbearably hot cell, next to the bath, again without mattresses. After a week they were transferred to a cell intended for 26 people. It contained 50-80 people. Some of them had mattresses.

13 days later they were put in a ‘Stolypin wagon’ for the three-day rail journey to Sverdlovsk; some prisoners, including Buzinnikov, were given food for only one day: half a loaf of bread and a jar of preserves called ‘Tourist’s Breakfast’. In Sverdlovsk Prison Buzinnikov found himself in a cell which flooded several times because of a faulty toilet.

On 23 October he was finally taken in a Black Maria to Azanka Station.

There are about 800 prisoners in the camp. The work, wood-processing, takes place in three shifts. The wood is brought from far away, since the trees around the camp have already been felled.

This camp (head, Major V.I. Maltsev) is regarded by the prisoners as the worst in the complex administered from Tavda, formerly the Vostokurallag or Eastern Urals complex; they call it the ‘rubbish dump’.

The camp shop is nearly always empty. There are no sweets, toothpaste or envelopes. Sometimes there is margarine, dried apples or apple juice. From time to time there is toilet soap.

There are no bowls in the refectory. In the winter there were dozens of them, but by February only a few remained. Meals are dished into the prisoners’ own containers (usually these are glass jars).

Buzinnikov did not receive a mattress until a few days after his arrival; a few days later still, he was given a sheet and a pillow. Ten days later he received a hat and a blanket — working clothes two and a half months afterwards.

During his first month Buzinnikov earned 30 kopeks [about 20 pence] ‘on his card’, i.e., money he’s entitled to spend in the camp shop.

***

OTHERS

Jehovah’s Witness Yury Victorovich BOGDAN is doing manual jobs in the Chernovtsy Investigations Prison.

He was sentenced in December 1978 by the people’s court in the town of Khotin, Chernovtsy Region (West Ukraine), to three years imprisonment for refusing to serve in the Army. He comes from Tabany village (Brichansky district, Moldavian SSR).

In Gorky Transit Prison Mykhaylo Osadchy faced a constant battle with bugs and lice. He wrote in a letter that even after the war (1941-1945) he had not seen people so tormented by lice.

In Novosibirsk Transit Prison Zinovy Antonyuk was put in a punishment cell on a ridiculous pretext. He responded by declaring a hunger-strike, which he kept up for almost four days, until he was assaulted.

The temperature in the punishment cell was between 8° and 10° degrees Centigrade; there were pools of water on the concrete floor; the water to flush the toilet was turned on only once; the water for washing was not turned on at all; no paper (i.e. toilet paper) was provided.

During a search an escort guard stole two stereo post-cards from Antonyuk; when he complained to the head of the escort detail, the latter promised to shoot him. Three tins of condensed soup, which Antonyuk had put in the store, were not returned to him (for more about Antonyuk see this issue “In Exile”, CCE 52.6).

Shagen ARUTYUNYAN (CCE 48.6) is in Camp No. 2 near Yerevan, at 20 Sovetashenskoye Highway.

On 30 October Arutyunyan staged a hunger-strike.

On 9 November 1978 the foreman sent Arutyunyan to the store to get some parts. While Arutyunyan was waiting there for the absent storekeeper, he was seen by the camp head, who was passing by. He immediately ordered that Arutyunyan be put in the cooler.

Arutyunyan was let out the following day after 20 prisoners had signed a protest statement and the foreman had confirmed that Arutyunyan had been carrying out his instructions.

At the end of December 1978, Arutyunyan was included in the list of prisoners recommended for conditional release with compulsory labour. Three weeks later his name was crossed off for “violating the regime”: in Lefortovo Prison he had earlier been punished with ten days in the cooler (CCE 51.8).

Stepan Vasilyevich NELYUBIN (b. 1922) was arrested in summer 1976 trying to give his notes to a guide at an American photographic exhibition in Alma-Ata (Kazakhstan).

As far as is known, the notes contained criticism of the Soviet system. Nelyubin was sentenced to three years in an ordinary-regime camp under Article 170-1 (Kazakh Criminal Code = Article 190-1, RSFSR Code) and was sent to serve his sentence in camp UG-157/9 in Guryev (Guryev [today Atyrau] Region, Kazakhstan).

Nelyubin fell seriously ill in camp and lost his sight completely. He was promised a release on health grounds. On 26 October 1978 he died in the camp. His family were notified that he had been buried in Gurev.

On 14 December 1978 Vasily Pavlovich PRONYUK, father of Yevgeny Pronyuk, now imprisoned in the Perm camps, died in prison in Dnepropetrovsk.

V.P. Pronyuk was born in 1909 in a village in the Western Ukraine. During the Stalin years he was convicted of participation in the nationalist movement. As a prisoner he worked in the mines in Vorkuta (Komi Republic) and continued working there after his release in 1956.

When it came to registering for his pension, his length of service was confirmed by fellow-villagers who had once worked with him. He returned to his village as a pensioner.

In 1973, after his son’s arrest, V.P. Pronyuk was accused of obtaining his pension illegally. He was sentenced to seven years in a strict-regime camp with confiscation of property. Pronyuk served practically all his sentence in a camp near Lvov.

After October 1978 there were no more letters from him. His family’s numerous enquiries were finally answered with the information that V.P. Pronyuk had died on 14 December 1978 in Dnepropetrovsk.

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