16 ITEMS
[1]
On 15 November 1974 Vasyl Lisovoi (CCE 30.6), who is in Camp 3 of the Mordovian complex, was put in a punishment isolation cell for 15 days and deprived of a scheduled visit as punishment for his refusal to work or to wear a patch bearing his surname.
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TRANSFERS (2-3, 8-9, 14-15)
[2]
In 1971 Boris Borisovich ZALIVAKO (CCE 17.11 [3]) was transferred for three years to VLADMIR PRISON Prison from Camp 3 in Mordovia because he organised prayer-meetings and refused to work on religious holidays. His state of health is so bad that his relatives fear for his life [1].
Before his arrest Zalivako was a priest in Ulan-Ude (Buryatia). He was deprived of his parish status because he had disregarded several unwritten regulations (he visited parishioners at their homes, and walked through the streets wearing his cassock). He was arrested in December 1968, together with Chinnov (see “In the Psychiatric Hospitals” CCE 34.9), for attempting to cross the border.
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[3]
In December Alexander Bolonkin (CCE 30.4, CCE 32.12) was transferred from Camp 3 to CAMP 19 in the Mordovian complex.
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[4]
UKRAINIAN WOMEN PRISONERS
In the course of 1973, the Ukrainian women political prisoners in Camp 3 of the Mordovian complex (CCE 33.4) held 15 hunger strikes, ranging in length between 24 hours and seven days.
They included, in particular, the traditional hunger-strikes of 5 and 10 December (cf. CCE 43.2); a hunger strike in protest against the order forbidding Stefaniya Shabatura (CCE 30.8) to paint; and a hunger strike in protest against the administration’s refusal to allow Nina Strokata a visit from her legal representative Leonid Tymchuk (CCE 30.8).
Nina Strokata (1926-1998)
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In early April 1973, Shabatura, Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets and Nina Strokata sent a request to the procurator in Saransk in charge of supervising corrective labour institutions. They asked to be given the opportunity to prepare themselves for the celebration of Easter — in particular, to go to confession.
In reply the Procurator’s Office instructed the camp administration to conduct a discussion with those who had so appealed about the separation of the Church from the State.
*
In December 1974 the Ukrainian women political prisoners sent two letters out of the camp.
(1) The first reads:
To:
- the President of the PEN Club, Heinrich Boell,
- the President of the World Federation of Medical Workers,
- the Permanent Representative at the UN of the World Federation of Scientific Workers
- the heads and leaders of international women’s associations, cultural organizations and trade unions, the Red Cross & Red Crescent organizations.
“It would be impossible to send you and your countrymen New Year’s greetings without having faith in a civilization, the ideal of which will become the sanctity of human life.
“We women, living in the kingdom of Grandfather Frost, still have faith that garlands made of barbed wire will be rejected by the power of reason and the ideals of our contemporaries.
With respect,
Ukrainian Women Political Prisoners
Mordovia, December 1973“
(2) The second letter reads:
“To all our friends outside the small zone [2], Happy New Year,
dear and faithful friends!
“We wish you joy, inspiration, faith and freedom.
Mordovia, December 1973″
*
When observing 10 December 1974 (Human Rights Day), the Ukrainian women political prisoners demanded the status of political prisoners.
As punishment for this Iryna Senik, Nadiya Svetlichnaya and Nina Strokata (who had only just returned from her latest medical examination at the oncological centre in Rostov-on-Don) were put in punishment cells. Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets was deprived of a scheduled visit — she was not put in a punishment cell only because of her bad state of health.
Stefaniya Shabatura was put in the cell-type premises (punishment cell) for six months: it is known that she had cursed one of the camp administration officials.
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[5]
FOUR HUNGER-STRIKERS
Chronicle 33 reported (CCE 33.5-1 [1.3]) that from 19 August 1974 onwards Ivan Svetlichny, Zinovy Antonyuk, Semyon Gluzman and Vladimir Balakhonov held a hunger strike in Camp 35 of the Perm complex.
On 18 October Svetlichny was transferred from the camp to the KGB investigation prison in Kiev; because of this he ended his hunger strike. On 22 November he had an hour-long visit from his wife.
At the end of November Antonyuk and Gluzman were still continuing their hunger strike. There are reports that Antonyuk is seriously ill.
Apparently Balakhonov was still continuing his hunger strike in early November.
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[6]
In early November 1974 Josif Meshener (CCE 16.10 [9], CCE 33.6-2 [1]) tried to commit suicide in Perm Camp 35. He was taken to hospital in a serious condition. He has now been returned to the camp zone.
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[7]
In Perm Camp 35 Valery Marchenko (CCE 33.6-2 [91]) is seriously ill with acute nephritis. He needs medications which are in short supply (the Hungarian drug ‘negramon’ or the American ‘negram’).
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TRANSFERS (2-3, 8-9, 14-15)
[8]
In early December 1974 Vladlen Pavlenkov [3] was transferred from Perm Camp 35 to serve the remainder of his sentence in VLADIMIR PRISON.
This was punishment for ‘the combined aggregate’ of his offences against camp discipline. According to the usual practice in the prison he has been placed on strict regime for the first two months.
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[9]
In late December 1974 Gilel Butman (CCE 20.1) was transferred from Perm Camp 35 to VLADIMIR PRISON.
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[10]
On 29 October 1974 an incident occurred in Camp 36 of the Perm complex. Five Jewish prisoners were talking together in the club, the usual meeting place for prisoners.
Lieutenant Salakhov, who is in charge of their detachment, ordered them to disperse. Josif Mendelevich and Lev Ladyzhensky objected; the order was unreasonable. Thereupon Salakhov called those who were gathered there an ‘assembly’ and threatened them with punishment.
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POLITICAL PRISONERS (11-12)
[11]
On 12 January 1967 the Murmansk Regional Court sentenced Vitaly Vasilyevich KALINICHENKO to 10 years in labour camps for attempting to cross the border. The court ruled that this constituted attempted treason and thus came under Articles 15 & 64 (RSFSR Criminal Code).
Kalinichenko [4] is now in Perm Camp 36.
On 24 November he sent a Statement to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, with a copy to the UN Commission of Human Rights, “requesting that his conditions of detention be changed to accord with the status of political prisoner”.
In his statement Kalinichenko wrote that the court had, in fact, condemned him for his political beliefs. He proved this by quoting from the verdict: “He is opposed to the social and political system of our country,” and “he attempted to flee because of political motives.”
Kalinichenko asked that
- (1) his conditions of imprisonment be changed in accordance with his status as a political prisoner;
- (2) his sentence be quashed; and
- (3) representatives of the UN and other international organizations be given the opportunity to investigate the substance of the charges against him, his sentence, and his conditions of imprisonment.
Kalinichenko gave notice in advance that if his first request was not fulfilled by 12 January 1975, then he would adopt for himself the status of a political prisoner and from that day would refuse to take part in compulsory labour and have his head shaved.
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[12]
On 12 December Stepan Sapelyak, Andrei Turik and Dmitry Grinkov, of Perm Camp 36 (CCE 33.6-3 [18, 19, 43]) sent a statement to Podgorny.
They demanded to be given the status of political prisoners and requested that their conditions of imprisonment be changed in accordance with this status. They also asked for the possibility to serve their sentences in the Ukraine and for an end to forced labour.
In their statement they declared that if they had not received a clear answer in a month, and if their demands were not fully met, they would refuse to have their heads shaved or to go out to work.
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[13]
In November 1974 Bidiya Dandaron, the 60-year-old academic and expert on Buddhism, died in a labour camp. Under Stalin, he spent 19 years in labour camps, and was later fully exculpated.
Then, in December 1972, he was sentenced once again by a people’s court in Ulan-Ude (Buryat ASSR) to five more years in a labour camp. The investigation of his case and his trial, which were marked by many illegalities, were reported by CCE 28.6.
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TRANSFERS (2-3, 8-9, 14-15)
[14]
On 13 November 1974 Yury Grodetsky — his case and sentence are unknown [5] to the Chronicle — was transferred from Mordovia to CAMP 36 in the Perm complex.
He refused to work on the ‘vibrostand’ and then refused to do any work at all, demanding to be granted the status of political prisoner and corresponding conditions of imprisonment. Repressive measures were taken against him: he is being kept almost continuously in a punishment cell.
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[15]
G. V. Davydov (CCE 29.2) has been transferred to VLADIMIR PRISON from Perm Camp 36.
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[16]
The RSFSR Supreme Court has heard the appeal by Sergei Pirogov (CCE 32.5). It upheld without change the verdict and sentence against him.
Pirogov is now in a labour camp in the Arkhangelsk Region (Nyandomsky district, Shozhma station, penal institution UO-42/10-2). There are about five hundred people in the camp. Pirogov is the only ‘political’ among them. His sentence is due to end in August 1975.
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NOTES
- In early 1976, CCE 39.2-1 reported, Zalivako was in Perm Camp 37.
↩︎ - “Small Zone, Large Zone”. Since the 1930s camp inmates talked of the USSR’s camps and prisons as the “small zone” while the country itself was the “large zone”, a similarly closed and punitive region.
(See Gursky, “A lesson in geography”, quoted in Resistance in the Gulag (1992, p. 134) and Malva Landa CCE 47.15 [17]).
↩︎ - On Vladlen Pavlenkov, see CCE 12.4, CCE 13.3, CCE 15.4 [4], CCE 33.6-2 [5] and Name Index.
↩︎ - On Kalinichenko, see CCE 41.6-2, CCE 46.11, CCE 48.3 and Name Index.
↩︎ - Grodetsky and Alexander Ivanov, both Leningrad trombone players, defected in Mexico City on 21 August 1972 and went to the USA. They changed their minds and returned to the Soviet Union in early September 1972.
Grodetsky was sentenced to four years (Article 64). He was transferred to Vladimir Prison in spring 1975, and released in September 1976. See AP report from Washington, dated 10 September 1972, and later issues of the Chronicle (CCE 35.7, CCE 42.4-4).
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A Chronicle of Current Events 