Arrests, Searches, Interrogations, Aug 1976 (41.5)

<<No 41 : 3 August 1976>>

TEN ENTRIES

[1]

YAKUTIA. On 22 June 1976 Pavel Bashkirov, an official of the Museum of Fine Arts in Yakutsk, was arrested in Nyurbachan.

In December 1975 his flat had been searched without a warrant and he had later been interrogated, without a record being made (CCE 38.19 [35], CCE 39.13 [11]).

On 11 May 1976, Bashkirov was taken by force to meet Deputy Procurator Demin of the Yakut ASSR, who read him a ‘Warning’ according to the well-known Decree. Bashkirov refused to sign the record of the ‘Warning’. While Bashkirov was with Demin someone broke down the door of his flat.

On 22 June Bashkirov flew off to visit Tverdokhlebov. When he got out of the aeroplane in Nyurba he was detained by local police officials, who searched him, confiscated some samizdat and let him go. Half-an-hour after he arrived at Tverdokhlebov’s, Pavel Bashkirov was arrested.

Bashkirov was taken to Yakutsk; he faces charges under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code).

[2]

KAUNAS. At the beginning of February this year, Zigmantas Širvinskas and Genrynas Klimaškauskas were arrested on the charge of having connections with the samizdat journal Aušra (CCE 39.8, CCE 40.10).

A search was carried out at the home of former political prisoner Matas Kasub in the town of Kėdainiai (Kasub’s address appeared in Klimaškauskas’s notebook). The search revealed a partial translation of The Gulag Archipelago into Lithuanian. Kasub stated that he had bought the Gulag Archipelago on the black market and was doing a translation for himself.

[3]

MOSCOW. In April Eduard Paltsev, head of the photo-laboratory at the Advanced Training Institute for Doctors, was arrested on a ‘currency’ charge. During a search of his office safe a microfilm of the Gulag Archipelago had been discovered.

During a search at the home of cameraman Vyacheslav Yegorov a copy of the Gulag Archipelago was found which had been printed from this microfilm.

Patlsev and Yegorov were confronted with each other.

Paltsev’s case is being conducted by Moscow KGB officials Mochalov and Sorokin.

[4]

ODESSA. On 16 June 1976 police officials carried out a search at the home of Vasily Vladimirovich BARLADEANU, In the search warrant its aim was stated to be the confiscation of falsified documents belonging to V. M. Goncharov.

The following were confiscated: a student card and work-book belonging to Viktor Mikhailovich Goncharov, three officially stamped forms from Odessa University, five diploma forms from Odessa University, a photocopy of Solzhenitsyn’s novel Cancer Ward three photocopies of Solzhenitsyn’s article ‘Live not by Lies’, four photographs of Solzhenitsyn, Barladyanu’s own articles ‘For and Against’, ‘A Story about the Life and Thoughts of Outcast Intellectuals’ and ‘No Compromises’, his poems, religious literature, two books by Berdyaev, and the collection of essays From the Depths [Iz glubiny].

V. V. Barladeanu is a Moldavian, 37 years old, and an art expert. At the beginning of 1974 he was expelled from the Party. In May 1974 he was dismissed from his post as head of the fine arts section at Odessa University and from the post of lecturer in ethics and aesthetics at Odessa Naval Engineering Institute. He is now working at the Museum of Fine Arts.

In ‘An Appeal to the whole Christian world, to all people of goodwill’, dated 17 June 1976, Barladyanu writes: ‘In analysing the works of K. Marx and his followers, I came to the conclusion that I and those like me have been deprived of all human rights, merely because we cannot and do not want to become rootless, because we are not able to renounce our national treasures, our relics, the history of our peoples, whose children we are …’

Not long before this search, Viktor Goncharov had been arrested. Just before that, a case belonging to him was confiscated from the automatic left-luggage lockers at Odessa airport. Goncharov has apparently been charged under Article 194 (UkSSR Criminal Code: “Forgery, production or sale of forged documents”). [This is the heading of Article 196. Article 194 concerns slightly different offences, ed.]

Barladeanu’s friends are being summoned for interrogation.

[5]

DONETSK REGION. On 15 June at the farm of Tzhevka a search was carried out at the home of Alexei Ivanovich Tikhy (Ukr. Tykhy). Handwritten material on the history of the Ukrainian language was confiscated. According to unconfirmed reports, after the search Tikhy was detained and given a ‘Warning’ according to the Decree of 25 December 1972. A. I. Tikhy served a term in the past under Article 58 of the old code.

[6]

RIGA. On 28 June a search was carried out, in connection with a case being investigated by the Moscow Procurator’s Office, at the home of former political prisoner Viktors Kalnins (a co-defendant of Gunnars Rode, he served 10 years under Articles corresponding to Articles 64 and 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code) [¹].

Samizdat was confiscated, in particular Solzhenitsyn’s Letter to the Soviet Leaders. The next day, Kalnins was summoned for interrogation. He was asked about certain Moscow acquaintances; inquiries were made as to where he obtained the confiscated books and ‘who has more such books?’ Kalnins refused to answer these questions, stating that he knew ‘the difference between a witness and an informer’.

On 15 July another search was carried out at the home of Kalnins. His personal papers were confiscated.

On 30 July there was a search at the home of former political prisoner Valdis Zarins (who served seven years for ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’). Manuscript copies of his poems, stories and plays were confiscated, together with his personal archive, notebooks and books published in Latvia before 1940.

On the same day a search was carried out at the home of former political prisoner Gunnars Freimanis (who served a five-year sentence). Handwritten copies of his poems were confiscated.

At the end of July four people were interrogated about ‘literary evenings in their homes’.

[7]

KAUNAS. During a search carried out by the KGB on 4 May at the home of sculptor Rimantos Sulskis, a copy of the Gulag Archipelago was found.

When interrogated, Sulskis said he had found the book on the street. Investigator Markevičius warned Sulskis that if he wanted to exhibit his work and indeed to have the opportunity to continue working, then the search that had taken place must not be publicized abroad.

[8]

SVERDLOVSK. Viktor Pestov (CCE 33.6-3), after being released from the Perm camps in May last year, was twice subjected to 6-hour interrogations in connection with the fact that a friend of his, a student of Sverdlovsk University, had admitted to KGB officials that Pestov had given him the book My Country and the World by A. D. Sakharov.

[9]

LENINGRAD. On the night of 24-25 May at the police station of Leningrad’s Pulkovo airport, Ernst Orlovsky [²], the Leningrad mathematician and specialist on patents, and a member of the Soviet group of Amnesty International, was subjected to a search on his arrival from Moscow.

Various samizdat documents were confiscated, also a short summary of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, a handwritten list of leading members of the All-Soviet Communist Party (Bolsheviks), and a detective novel in English. All the confiscated material was described as anti-Soviet in the search record.

The search was carried out without a warrant being shown and without any spoken explanations whatever. The man conducting the search showed an identity card in the name of police Major I. A. Ivanov; however, his name did not appear on the search record. On 28 May Orlovsky sent a declaration to the Leningrad Transport Procurator, protesting against the actions of those who had searched him, and asked for criminal charges to be brought against I. A. Ivanov.

[10]

MOSCOW. On 26 June 1976 a man in civilian clothes came up to Zviad Gamsakhurdia in the metro, and after showing him a document told him to accompany him to Police Station 11.

There two officials told Gamsakhurdia that he had been detained because he had “hit an old lady in the metro”; they took his brief-case away from him and confiscated the third volume of Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, The Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Voinovich, five issues of Kontinent and other items; also articles and declarations by Gamsakhurdia himself.

A few hours later TASS reported Gamsakhurdia’s ‘act of hooliganism’ to foreign news agencies.

On 30 June Gamsakhurdia went to Police Station 11, as he had been promised that some of the confiscated material would be returned to him. However, nothing was returned, and in an ‘explanatory talk’ he was advised to leave Moscow as soon as possible.

Gamsakhurdia has been subjected before to similar searches in Moscow (CCE 37.14 [15]).

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