SIXTEEN ITEMS
[1]
UKRAINE.
On 28 June 1977 the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR, after hearing the appeal in the case of Petro Ruban (CCE 45.3), left the sentence unchanged.
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[2]
UZBEKISTAN.
At the end of June 1977, the father of Amner Zavurov (CCE 44.11) was asked to write a plea for pardon on behalf of his son. He refused.
Amnon, Amner’s brother, was again asked to take back his Soviet passport: he also refused.
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VORKUTA-LENINGRAD (3-4)
[3]
On 9 June Vladimir Borisov (CCE 43.8, CCE 44.20) arrived in Vorkuta, where Yuliya Okulova-Voznesenskaya (CCE 45.13) was to be tried on 11 June. The trial was put off and Borisov returned to Moscow.
On the day of his departure an attempt was made to accuse him of stealing a suitcase. As soon as it turned out that Borisov was no longer there (he had left early that morning), the suitcase was found.
At this time in Leningrad Borisov’s mother received the following letter:
“Because the Vorkuta polyclinic has informed us that your son Vladimir Yevgenyevich Borisov’s health has grown worse, we ask you to come at once to the Vyborg district psychoneurological clinic, to see Dr N. V. Ryabkina or L. D. Fedoseyeva on any day except Saturday or Sunday, from 10 am to 5 pm. Doctor N. V. Ryabkina.”
At the clinic no one could explain to E. P. Borisova why this communication had been sent to her.
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[4]
On 29 June 1977 the trial of Julia Okulova took place in Vorkuta.
For escaping from exile, she was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment under Article 186 (RSFSR Criminal Code); in addition, the court sentenced her to another year for the exile she had not served, under Article 41 of the code. The total sentence was two years in ordinary-regime camps.
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[5]
KISHINYOV.
At the beginning of April engineer Dzhemelinsky was brought before a comrades court for reading and storing ‘anti-Soviet literature’. Before this, there had been a search at his home; a case was initiated against him under Article 203-1 (Moldavian SSR Criminal Code = Article 190-1, RSFSR Code).
Because of his ‘repentance’ the case was handed over to a comrades’ court, which “severely condemned” him. The newspaper Evening Kishinyov reported this in a long article.
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[6]
BURYATIA-MOSCOW.
On 30 June the people’s court of the Bauman district in Moscow, with Judge Sorina presiding, rejected the claim made by Alexander Bolonkin (CCE 44.19, CCE 45.13, CCE 46.12 [1]) against the Bauman Higher Technical School concerning the return of the manuscript of a monograph which Bolonkin had handed over to the institute’s publishing house in 1970.
Bolonkin could not be present in court as Judge Sorina, after sending him an announcement, at the same time sent a telegram to the local police station: “The Bauman district people’s court has not summoned Bolonkin. The announcement was sent as information.” On 8 August the Moscow City Court heard Bolonkin’s appeal and left the decision of the people’s court unchanged.
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[7]
MOSCOW.
In the report on the foundation of the Working Commission to Investigate the Use of Psychiatry for Political Purposes (CCE 44.10), the address and telephone number given for the Working Commission were those of Irina Kaplun, a member of the Commission.
At the end of July Irina Kaplun’s telephone was disconnected. At the KGB reception, the person in whose name the telephone was registered was told that the telephone had been disconnected for three months because of conversations which were harmful to the State.
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LENINGRAD. In the second half of July Alexander Tron was warned for a second time (//CCE 33) according to the Decree of 25 December 1972. The text of the warning included the testimony of the Dutchman Teodor Voort (see the article by A. Kostrov “The Second Hypostasis of Teodor Voort” in Ogonyok, No. 27, 1977).
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[8]
A Refusal to Give Evidence
From 13 to 23 May 1977 officials of the Leningrad KGB (Major V. A. Ilyn and First Lieutenant M. V. Baranov) had a series of ‘chats’ with Alexander Lyakhov.
This year Lyakhov was completing his evening courses at the Faculty of Philology (Leningrad State University) and should have defended his diploma essay on 17 May. He was working as a photographer in the phonetics laboratory in the same faculty and was a member of the CPSU.
The first chat lasted for 14 hours. Baranov and Ilyn informed Lyakhov that they knew that for a long time he had been microfilming Solzhenitsyn’s books, the Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR, the Chronicle of Current Events, and other literary and documentary works at his place of work, after obtaining these from friends. In the course of the talk the KGB officials deliberately showed that they had extensive information on Lyakhov’s life and acquaintances. They said that Lyakhov would be spending 17 May — the day when he should have taken the diploma — in a prison cell, that he would get a long sentence, that his child would find life very difficult and that, to avoid being responsible for this, he should give evidence against his friends.
The result of six talks was a ‘statement’ by Lyakhov which was dictated to him by Baranov. It stated that a friend of Lyakhov’s — Boris Mityashin — had brought him the ‘anti-Soviet’ literature to microfilm, while Arseny Roginsky (CCE 45.4) had given him one of Solzhenitsyn’s books. In addition, the statement mentions other people known to Lyakhov, including his university friends; he said he had given them the books to read.
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On 14 June 1977 A. Lyakhov and B. Mityashin addressed some foreign journalists in Moscow.
Lyakhov spoke of the evidence he had given at KGB headquarters and read out his letter to the Action Group and the Group to Assist the Implementation of the Helsinki Agreement (copy to the //C C E). The letter said, “. . . I hereby renounce all my evidence about my friends. I gave it under pressure from KGB official Baranov and others”. Lyakhov stated that he was fully prepared for whatever might be in store for him, probably arrest, possibly an ‘accident’ or a beating-up by hooligans who would remain undiscovered; but fear would not make him change his decision.
In conclusion, Lyakhov announced his intention of emigrating from the USSR.
*
Boris Mityashin read out his statement to the Action Group, the Assistance Group, the Moscow Amnesty International Group and the Chronicle.
It stated that in April 1975 KGB officials had confiscated the Gulag Archipelago from him and they were now in possession of Lyakhov’s evidence about him, Mityashin wrote that he was not going to corroborate or deny this evidence, but would “insist on his lawful right freely to receive and pass on any information relating to the history of the USSR or present-day Soviet reality”. He emphasised that in the Soviet Union dissenters who lived among the working-class were being subjected to ever stronger pressure. Mityashin expressed his fear that the KGB might fabricate any kind of criminal charge against him, so that he would not be facing ‘political’ charges. In addition, Mityashin gave the journalists an autobiographical summary.
Boris Mityashin was born in 1949. He has changed his working profession a number of times. At the age of 18 he left the Komsomol. He wrote letters to Soviet papers and to the radio, protesting against the sentences passed on Ginzburg, Galanskov, Bukovsky and Litvinov, against the armed invasion of Czechoslovakia, against the lack of freedom of speech. In September 1969 officials of the Leningrad KGB had ‘prophylactic chats’ with him, to which Mityashin answered in writing that in future he would continue to act in accordance with his conscience.
On 5 November 1969 he was arrested and sentenced to 3 years of hard-regime camps under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code). His guilt was aggravated by another charge, under Article 206, paragraph 2 of the code, which concerned a fight which was provoked with Mityashin two weeks before his arrest. (CCE 11.15 [20] mistakenly stated that Mityashin had been sentenced under Article 70). On returning to Leningrad after his imprisonment, Mityashin completed a driving course and has been working as a truck driver.
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Lyakhov met Mityashin in 1969 on the instruction of KGB officials. Their acquaintance became friendship and Lyakhov refused to continue working for the KGB. In 1969, at Mityashin’s trial. Lyakhov would not give evidence against Mityashin, in spite of pressure from the KGB.
On 7 July Alexander Lyakhov was expelled from the Party by the Leningrad University Party Committee “for breaking the CPSU statutes”. The infringement consisted of the fact that Lyakhov had refused to explain to a meeting the contents of his statements to the KGB.
On 16 June 1977 A. B. Roginsky was warned according to the Decree. The warning was made largely because of the material confiscated during a search at his home on 4 February 1977 (CCE 45.4) and because of A. Lyakhov’s statements. Roginsky refused to sign the Warning.
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[9]
CRIMEA.
The Crimean Tatar Riza Seitveliev was demobilized at the end of 1975.
In January 1976 he and his family arrived in the Crimea. In April Seitveliev bought a house in the village of Rodnoye, Delogorsk district. At this point they began going round in circles: the village soviet did not want to register the purchase without the permission of the chief of police, the police chief sent Seitveliev to a notary, the notary asked for permission from the collective farm management for a piece of land to be assigned, the farm asked for a preliminary registration, and so on.
On 24 February 1977 the head of the district KGB, E. A. Ilynov, declared “We are not going to register you or Dilyara in Belogorsk district, and we will try to do all we can to make sure you are not registered anywhere in the Crimean Region”. (Dilyara Seitveliyeva is Mustafa Dzhemilev’s sister.)
On 19 June the Seitveliev couple appealed to Brezhnev for help.
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[10]
Order issued by the Rector of Moscow State University, Academician R. V. Khokhlov (29 March 1977, No. 748 — k.) [1]:
“… A great deal of work has been done in the Faculty of Mechanics & Mathematics to bring the social composition of the students and graduate students into line with the social composition of the country’s population as a whole …”
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[11]
MOSCOW.
A questionnaire which had to be completed in 1977 by every person entering the Moscow Energy Institute included a section on “Your close relatives (father, mother, husband, wife, brother, sister)”
The section began with the following note: “If your mother (or wife) has taken her husband’s surname, you must also give her maiden name. If you have been married before, give the name of your former wife (or husband).” In addition, the questionnaire includes the following sections:
- if you have changed your surname, name or patronymic, state when, where and on what grounds;
- have you been abroad? Where, when and with what aim?
- have you any relatives abroad? Where, since when, where do they work? (the degree of relationship);
- do you or your relations have any links, by correspondence or otherwise, with foreign citizens; who are they and where do they live?
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[12]
HELSINKI.
At the end of June the psychiatrist Yury Novikov, head of the information department at the Serbsky Institute, “disappeared” here [Novikov later surfaced in West Germany.] He was participating in a conference on suicidology which was taking place in Helsinki.
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[13]
YEREVAN.
Eduard Arutyunyan, Cand. Sc. (Economics), deacon Robert Nazaryan and Samvel Osyan, a student at the Polytechnical Institute, declared in April that they were founding a Group to Assist the Implementation of the Helsinki Agreements. Arutyunyan is the leader of the Group; Nazaryan is the treasurer.
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[14]
KIEV.
Nikolai Velichko, the presbyter of the schismatic Baptist congregation which was registered in 1974 after the arrest of Georgy Vins (CCE 34.12), has made a speech to the parishioners, saying that Amalrik and Bukovsky are anti-Soviet; he also said that the Human Rights Committee and the Helsinki Groups were unofficial political organizations and that believers should not send complaints to them, but to State organizations.
A few days before, Lieutenant-Colonel Fisonenkov of the KGB, in conversation with the Baptists, appealed to them not to turn for help to ‘the dissidents’.
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[15]
MOSCOW.
At the end of July V. Turchin, chairman of the Soviet Amnesty International group, the group’s secretary V. Albrekht, and Andrei Sakharov received invitations to an Amnesty International conference in West Germany.
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[16]
LENINGRAD.
On 1 July Ernst Orlovsky (CCE 45.18 [21]) was restored to his former job as a chief engineer.
In February 1974 he was demoted at work on the basis of a reference containing one negative phrase: “inclined to praise an ideology which is alien to our society” (CCE 34.15 [1]). His salary is now 20 roubles less than his original one.
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NOTES
- See samizdat reports (CCE 51.21 [6-10], December 1978) about restricting admission of Jewish students to the Faculty.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 