«No 47 : 30 November 1977»

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• 9-1. Vladimir Prison & Mordovia
• 9-2. Perm; Other prisons and camps
• 9-3. Letters & statements
• 9-4. In defence of political prisoners; Releases

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1. Vladimir Prison

On 20 August 1977, on completion of a three-year prison sentence received in Perm Camp 36, Vitold Abankin (his 12-year sentence finishes in August 1978) and Alexei Safronov were sent back to the camps.

During the search before their dispatch, addresses (torn out of notebooks) and photographs of prison comrades were confiscated from them, as well as greetings cards, books with dedications from comrades, and books in foreign languages. The other books were bent and mutilated as their covers were pulled off, and inscriptions of ‘Vladimir’ were rubbed out so hard that holes were made in the paper.

Exercise books with personal notes were also confiscated from Safronov, and from Abankin cuttings from newspapers and journals, four exercise books with extracts copied out from books (‘tendentious’, according to the record), and five exercise books containing science fiction stories composed by him (‘tendentious’ or ‘anti-Soviet’),

Before being transported from prison both of them were in hospital. Safronov has anaemia. Abankin has infected liver and kidneys, and swollen legs. In three years he has spent 205 days in the cooler.

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G. DAVYDOV

On 21 September Georgy Davydov (CCE 29.2) completed his 5-year term in prison and camp. He has been transported to the Irkutsk Region to serve his two-year exile.

On 22 October he was freed in the village of Tulun (east Siberia). On 20 November he was placed under surveillance there. The end of his exile is in June 1979. His address: Tulun, 4. Prirechnaya Street, flat 17a.

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On 26 August Vladimir Balakhonov was deprived of the meeting due to him.

However, no one comes to visit him in prison: his wife divorced him, his daughter is 10 years old, his father, brother and sister do not want to come; and his mother died in 1972.

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In November 1977 Gabriel Superfin (CCE 32.3, CCE 33.6-2 [3]) was given 15 days in the cooler.

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On 19 June 1976 the Azerbaijani Zeamalov, a common criminal, was forbidden a meeting just because he spoke to his relatives who had come to see him in his native language.

A year later, in reply to his complaints, a KGB official told him in a private conversation that there had been nothing illegal in the actions of the administration.

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2. Mordovia

2.1: Camp 1 (special-regime)

In October-November 1977 Aleksei Ivanovich TYKHY (CCE 46.4) arrived here. The Ukrainian Supreme Court, after hearing an appeal on 15 September in the case of Tykhy and Rudenko, ruled that the sentence was valid.

Tykhy’s sentence, 10 years of special-regime camps and five years of exile, is being counted from 4 February 1977 (and not from 5 February, as stated in CCE 44.4 and CCE 46.4).

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There are now 39 people in Camp 1.

Twelve are war criminals, and 13 are common criminals re-convicted under political articles while in camp.

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DEATHS

In the last three years, six prisoners under the age of 50 have died in Camp 1:

• Volobuyev (23) from TB (tuberculosis);
• Pekharev (33) from perforation of a stomach ulcer;
• Vasilyev (42) from a heart attack;
• Safronov (47) from TB;
• Tsvetkov (48) from TB;
• Budayev (under 50) after contracting TB, he hanged himself.

The circumstances of Pekharev’s death were as follows.

He often complained of pains in his stomach, was sometimes sent to the hospital but would be returned without a thorough examination having been carried out. During work one day he could not stand and crawled out into the yard.

Other prisoners demanded that Pekharev be given help, but the medical attendant Nadyushkin declared that Pekharev was “squinting” (malingering). Only when Pekharev had turned green did the medical attendant give him an injection, and then it was one which could not have helped him with his illness. Pekharev became worse and worse and in the evening he was at last sent to the hospital on a trolley — in handcuffs.

Pekharev died on the way or in hospital; it is not known precisely how.

KGB officials circulated rumours that Pekharev had been given an operation, after which he himself broke open his stitches and ate a plateful of porridge (kasha). Over twenty prisoners responded to Pekharev’s death with a hunger strike, demanding that the causes of the high mortality rate .be eliminated.

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In April 1977, after the death of Volobuyev in hospital, the prisoners (except for the war criminals) also declared a hunger strike, carrying it out on 17 April, a day of communist voluntary labour.

Statements addressed to the camp administration, the procurator’s office and the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, pointed to the harsh conditions of their confinement, the poor food and medical service, the arbitrariness of the administration, the confinement of prisoners with TB in the same cells as other prisoners, and the lack of a medical isolation ward in the camp. In their statements many of them demanded recognition of their status as political prisoners.

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HUNGER STRIKES

On 1 May nine political prisoners declared a new hunger-strike demanding not only an improvement in conditions of confinement, but also an end to reprisals against those fighting for their rights.

This time the administration carried out an “improvement of conditions”: the head of the camp, Kropotov, replaced the crackling loudspeaker used during film showings (two films a year, each one shown three times); a head of detachment brought five books to the library; and a drinking tank without a lock was placed in the workshop.

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In May Eduard Kuznetsov declared a hunger-strike in protest against being deprived of a visit. His demand was supported by other political prisoners. Kuznetsov received the meeting (CCE 46.10).

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In June a hunger-strike lasting many days was carried out in connection with the CSCE Conference in Belgrade; the demands were for a fundamental change in attitude towards political prisoners.

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In October Alexei Murzhenko and Yury Fyodorov were sent to the hospital.

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Svyatoslav Karavansky should have received a visit in August, but his wife Nina Strokata, who is living in Tarusa under administrative surveillance, was not given permission for a trip to the camp (CCE 46.11 [6]).

At the beginning of September Karavansky declared a hunger-strike. Taking into consideration his serious physical condition, Nina Antonovna, as well as Sakharov, Lyubarsky and V. Mashkova, appealed to him to end the hunger-strike. On 14 October he ended it. At approximately this time representatives of the authorities promised Strokata that in the middle of November she would be allowed to come and visit her husband. The promise was kept.

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On 4 October 1977, the day the Belgrade Conference opened, eight people carried out a hunger-strike.

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In the summer of this year the following statement became available:

“Recently in the Mordovian Special Camp (Potma rail station, p/o Sosnovka) a committee has been organised on a social basis composed of three people: the priest Vasyl Romanyuk, Eduard Kuznetsov and long-term political prisoner Danylo Shumuk.

“Among the tasks of the Committee are:

• the promotion of a friendly climate between political prisoners,
• unity between different nationalities, and
• mutual respect and recognition of the humanitarian rights of individual prisoners of all ideological persuasions who have been convicted for their political beliefs; and also
• the condemnation of antisemitism.

“Recently the Committee has issued a stern reprimand to political prisoners Valentyn Moroz and Ivan Hel for behaviour unworthy of the status of a political prisoner.

“Specifically, Moroz is accused of inciting ethnic hatred (particularly with regard to Russians and Jews), and of not respecting the views of his comrades in misfortune.

“He does not want to sign any collective letters and statements to either Soviet or foreign bodies, and does not want to take part in collective hunger-strikes. In addition, the antisemitic position of Moroz casts aspersions on Ukrainian dissidents, who form a majority in the camp, and generally inflicts damage on the democratic movement as a whole, as in the West the name of Moroz enjoys great popularity.

“Ivan Hel is accused of behaving like a hooligan and of egotism, which he displays at every step.

“He has beaten up his compatriots (Mykhaylo Osadchy, Danilo Shumuk, Vasyl Romanyuk, Svyatoslav Karavansky, Bohdan Rebrik) and others. In addition, he is accused of antisemitism and friendship with criminals. The position adopted by Hel is very convenient for the camp administration.

“The Committee gave warnings to prisoners Moroz and Hel about their unworthy behaviour, but they rejected all the reproofs addressed to them. The Committee therefore demands that a general boycott be imposed on prisoners Moroz and Hel and that their names not be mentioned either in Samizdat or in other materials.

“The Committee asks that Moroz cease to be called the best representative of the Ukrainian people and the dissident intelligentsia.

“All Ukrainian political prisoners with the exception of Hel have censured the actions of Moroz.”

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The Chronicle felt obliged to publish this statement. But, in any event, it does not associate itself with the call for a boycott it contains.

From about September 1977 Hel and Moroz were transferred to a work brigade of criminals.

Moroz was transferred, at his own request, to solitary confinement. Conflicts and quarrels then ceased.

The conflict situation, Tatyana Khodorovich suggested, was a consequence of the cracking of the moral and physical strength of prisoners in the inhuman conditions of the special-regime camp.

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2.2: Camps 3 and 19

The following prisoners took part in a 100-day campaign (21 April-29 July) for the status of political prisoners (CCE 45.11-2, CCE 46.10-2): Airikyan, Budulak-Sharygin, Karpenok, Markosyan, Osipov, Ravins, Soldatov, Ushakov, Kheifets, Khramtsov, Chornovil, Stiakirov and Yuskevich.

The course of this campaign and the reprisals in response (the information in CCE 46.10-2 was incomplete and not entirely accurate) is reported in a letter from one of the participants:

“On 21 April [1977] we adopted the status of political prisoners: we tore off our stripes and did not go to work. We demanded a political amnesty, and, until it came into force, an improvement in the regime of confinement in concentration camps.

“Threats began. The higher ranks (colonels and lieutenant-colonels) threatened us, on the whole, with new terms of imprisonment, for organizing camp disorders. We replied that production was continuing (at first five people in this zone adopted the status, now there are about 15), each person was acting by himself, i.e. there was no ‘group of persons’, etc.

“Then reprisals started. We were deprived of everything possible: the right to buy food products, to parcels, to visits. Then it was the cooler: Ushakov got five days; Osipov, six; Shakirov, seven; Soldatov, ten; and Kheifets, 12. Before this there was a search in the zone and all papers were taken without any records of the confiscations being made; they announced: no papers allowed except for copies of verdicts.

“The typical cooler is a damp room with the plaster peeling off, and when we were put in one it was whitewashed.

“It has wooden bunks held up by chains. In the daytime the bunks are bolted to the wall. There is a tiny table with two or four stump seats, 15-18 centimetres in diameter, which are painful to sit on. We lie on the wooden floor. Once one of the present ‘status’-adopters (Budulak) fasted for 18 days; he was assigned to a floor with wooden boards over cement. They don’t issue a bed: we put slippers wrapped in a handkerchief under our heads.

“They feed us a reduced norm, i.e., on soup that is completely without fat or thickening, and that’s only on alternate days. On the other day it’s bread and water. There’s no limit on salt. We’re forbidden to read. They take us out of our cells for only half an hour in the morning, to wash and go to the toilet. For daytime and night-time needs it’s the close-stool. There’s not enough chloride of lime so the cell stinks.

“Because of the dampness it’s cold in the cell at night, even at the warm time of the year.

“Colonel Novikov from the administration said: ‘What are you complaining about? If it’s cold we’ll heat you up!’ The next day they took away Ushakov’s warm underclothes (he was in handcuffs) and gave him underpants and a vest. They said it was time to change to summer dress.

“Osipov was undressed. In response Soldatov declared a hunger-strike and removed his vest as well. They made a slight concession — they gave us cotton underwear. It’s very cold. The nights here are sometimes cold like in autumn, then it’s very hard for a naked hungry prisoner in the cooler. If you’re lucky enough to find a newspaper in the toilet and you wrap yourself up in it next to the skin, then it’s warmer.

“We are responding to the hunger and cold with pre-Belgrade hunger-strikes on our days off work. Kheifets has carried out 10, Soldatov and Ushakov, 12 each. Chornovil has done more than 20 of them, but he was the first to adopt political status. When we arrived at the cooler, he was already in the punishment block. (The cells are across the corridor.)

“In our hunger-strikes we are protesting against the deterioration of the food — way below the regulation minimum norms — and against being transported with criminals, at which time politicals are terrorized by bandits and murderers. We have protested against

• national and ethnic discrimination (forcible deportation from our Motherland, lack of proper conditions for our national life);
• the impossibility of doing creative work;
• compulsory political lectures;
• semi-unpaid labour without holidays;
• the ban on bringing families into the camp;
• the restrictions on contacts with families (one visit a year), i.e., the effective destruction of families and the furthering of the moral disintegration of the individual;
• secret legislation, when we are punished for breaking secret and official instructions and orders unknown to the prisoners, which make the published legislation immeasurably more burdensome.

“In response the administration has decided to confiscate all statements, including private ones, to the procurator’s office, on the pretext that we were using inadmissible expressions such as “political prisoners’, ’status’ and ‘hunger strike’.

“From 24 April [1977], when they confiscated our statements of condolence to the Armenians on the anniversary of the genocide in Armenia under Turkish rule in the pre-Revolutionary years, the word ‘genocide’ was added.

“Mention of names of other political prisoners is forbidden.

“Despite all these hardships, everyone is cheerful. This does not please the administration: ‘The cooler doesn’t work on you.’ Soldatov replies: ‘We are stronger than the cooler.’

“The soul of the prison block is [Viacheslav] Chornovil. Conversations between cells are forbidden, but every day he reads us the latest news. Pikulin, the camp head, called Chornovil our general.

“Slavko [Chornovil] looks bad — he is worn out with hunger. Every ten days he keeps count of pre-Belgrade activity; up to 20 May 570 days had been served in the cooler and punishment block during ’77 (340 in the cooler and 230 in the punishment block), and 135 pre-Belgrade hunger-strikes had been carried out. 80 statements had been confiscated. On average, four people were serving punishment terms every day.

“The last specially notable event was saving the Armenian patriot [Ramzik] Markosyan, who received 25 days in the cooler out of the first 30 days after he adopted political status.

“He has a stomach ulcer and cannot recover from it. Twice he was carried out of his cell more dead than alive and taken to the medical block for an enema. When he was brought there for the fourth time Slavko proposed — and everyone supported him — an indefinite hunger-strike until Markosyan was helped. Before this the doctor had not come for three days. We lay down on hunger-strike until Markosyan was dragged out of solitary. The authorities cynically bargained with us: persuade him to give up his “status’ or his death will be on your conscience. We wrote a protest (accompanied by a mass hunger-strike) at this crime against humanity on the day the new constitution was given. We forced them to give in — Markosyan was transferred to the Medical block. The same day, 24 May, Osipov was sent to the punishment block for six months, Chornovil to the cooler for 15 days. They announced they would confiscate all statements like this one.

“We are cheerful, backed up by the sympathy of the zone and your support. The KGB hardly ever show up. but at first they were very angry about the leakage of information.

“Kheifets was in the cooler for 12 days (from 21 April to 2 May), then, after a 24-hour break, for 13 days (from 4 May to 16 May), then, after a ten-day break, for 15 days (from 26 May to 9 June).

“On 26 May Ravins received another eight days in the cooler.

“On 2 June Soldatov was put in the cooler.

“On 3 June Markosyan and Ravins were sent to hospital.

“While he was in the punishment blocks, Osipov fell ill. TB was diagnosed but he was not sent to hospital right away, only on 29 July. (Despite the symptoms of tuberculosis already discovered, a letter was sent to Osipov’s wife, in reply to her inquiries, which said — over the signature of two doctors of camp 19 — that he was healthy.)

“One day political prisoners of Camp 19, referring to the incident with Osipov, asked KGB camp official Boroda: ‘When will the deliberate destruction of the health of political prisoners end?’ Boroda replied: ‘You shouldn’t have landed up in the punishment block.’

“Chornovil was also ill for a long time in the punishment block. On 23 September he was transferred to hospital. Both Chornovil and Osipov were sent back from hospital to the zone for taking part in the ‘Belgrade’ hunger-strike on 4 October; Chornovil on 5 October and Osipov on 12 October.”

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NATIONAL UNITED PARTY

On 14 August 1977 Armenian political prisoners held a hunger-strike demanding the legalization of the National United Party and the implementation of a referendum in Armenia on self-determination under UN supervision.

This action was supported by 28 political prisoners in the Mordovian camps (it is known that they included Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets, Semenyuk, Kheifets, Ushakov and Chornovil), as well as Budulak-Sharygin and Ravins, who landed up in the cooler after this.

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On 22 August Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets, Nijole Sadunaite and Paruir Airikyan carried out a hunger-strike in protest against the confiscation of letters.

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In August and September Paruir Airikyan was deprived of access to the camp shop. The September deprivation was cancelled when he responded to it by declaring a strike.

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On 12 September 1977 Maigonis Ravins received two months in the punishment block for not fulfilling the norm, for violating the regime, and for slanderous fabrications.

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In September many political prisoners made a written protest against two particularly cruel punishments:

• on 16 September Nadezhda Usoyeva was sent to the cooler for 15 days for refusing compulsory work because of religious considerations (she was convicted for Religion’), At this time she was ill, having not yet recovered from an illness received during her previous time in the cooler.
• on 19 September Pyotr Sartakov, who suffers from several heart diseases, received 14 days in the cooler for not fulfilling the norm (since 1973 Sartakov has served 524 days in the cooler and the punishment block, and has repeatedly been deprived of access to the camp shop.)

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In September K. Didenko received 15 days in the cooler for trying to assemble a radio receiver.

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On 4 October 1977, the day the Belgrade Conference opened, more than fifteen people held a protest hunger-strike.

Amongst them were: Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets, Popovich and Senik in the women’s zone of Camp 3; Budulak-Sharygin, Ravins, Saranchuk, Sartakov, Soldatov, Ushakov and Kheifets (Camp 19); Vladimir Osipov and Viacheslav Chornovil, in hospital; and Paruir Airikyan (Camp 3).

Besides the protests of a general character declared by everyone, Airikyan advanced the demand to let him go to Belgrade or to let him meet foreign correspondents here in camp.

Airikyan was prescribed 15 days in the cooler, but was placed in the medical block in Camp 19.

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In October Vladas Lapienis (CEE 47.5) arrived in Camp 3.

Markosyan was taken from the hospital to Yerevan.

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In August Yuskevich, Karpenok and Shakirov were taken off to Saransk, the capital of Mordovia.

In July and August Soldatov was in Tallinn (CCE 46.10-1).

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In June doctors wanted to send Nijole Sadunaite (CCE 37.7 [1]) to hospital: she had had a high temperature for a long time. The administration of Camp 3 refused to allow this.

In August the camp term of Sadunaite (three years) finished and she was transported into exile, also for three years, in central Siberia (Boguchany village, Krasnoyarsk Region [Krai]). The journey took 27 days.

In exile she is working as a cleaner at a school.

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