NINETEEN ITEMS
[1]
KIEV. 29 September was the anniversary of the 1941 shootings at Baby Yar.
Jewish activists from various towns in the Soviet Union decided to commemorate the day in Kiev by placing wreaths on the war memorial. The Kiev activists had earlier been summoned by the city’s Party committee and told that no obstacles would be put in their way. At the same time, they were visited by KGB officials in their homes and warned that they would run into trouble if they took part in the ceremony.
A number of people were intending to come to Moscow, but not one of them could get to Kiev in time. Anatoly Shcharansky, in particular, was followed for days by a whole escort of cars and people on foot. A few hours before the departure of his train, for which he had already bought a ticket, he was detained and taken to a police station, where he was interrogated for many hours, thereby missing his train.
The Jews of Kiev and a few people from other towns who had nevertheless managed to arrive laid wreaths on the memorial. The authorities did not hinder the conducting of the mourning ceremony.
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[2]
ODESSA. Leonid Tymchuk (a sailor from Odessa port), who was found guilty of ‘hooliganism’ by a court in December 1975 (CCE 38.5), has begun to notice since the end of August 1976 that he is again being followed.
On 7 September, coming to work at the port, Tymchuk first met KGB Captain Alexeyev, who was trying not to be noticed, and then an acquaintance of his, G. O. Golumbievsky. The latter had been saying not long before, in the presence of other people, that he was working for the KGB, for example he had been ‘dispersing anti-Soviet meetings’ at the flat of his former wife A. V. Golumbievskaya (CCE 34.15).
Golumbievsky went up to Tymchuk and began to carry on an incoherent monologue. Suddenly he fell to the ground, shouting ‘Tymchuk hit me!’ Getting up, he tried to take Tymchuk to the police. Many of the port workers, who saw this scene in all its details, were completely dumbfounded and even wanted to take Golumbievsky himself to the police. Then Golumbievsky went away in a hurry.
Tymchuk’s friends are disturbed by these events, it was by just such methods that the charge of hooliganism was brought against him last year.
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[3]
ZHUKOVKA (near Moscow). On 28 July Associated Press correspondent George Krimsky came to Sakharov’s dacha with his family.
Not long before the time of arrival which he had stated on the telephone the day before, a policeman and a picket of the ‘socially conscious citizens’ (as they were called in the record which was made later) appeared near the dacha. They stopped Mr Krimsky’s car and asked him to go away at once, as ‘the settlement of Zhukovka is closed to foreigners’, Krimsky and Efrem Yankelevich (Sakaharov’s son-in-law, who had invited the Krimsky family) insisted on checking this unexpected news with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Krimsky was allowed to telephone, but only in the presence of the policeman and the ‘public’, who entered the house in spite of Yankelevich’s protests, (This is the second occasion of unauthorized entrance into Sakharov’s dacha, see CCE 41.14 [1]). An official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that the settlement of Zhukovka was closed to foreigners.
Until now Sakharov’s dacha has been freely visited both by foreign journalists and by other foreign guests, for example, by Heinrich Boll and Jeremy Stone, the director of the Federation of American Scientists.
Yankelevich issued a declaration about this incident on 14 September: “On the subject of freedom of movement for foreign journalists and contacts between people.”
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[5]
MOSCOW-NYURBACHAN. In August Bonner and Sakharov went on a visit to A. Tverdokhlebov (CCE 41.4). In the settlement of Mirny, where the planes from Moscow arrive, a note from the head of transport requesting that they be found a place in the night plane from Mirny to Nyurba was lost.
Sakharov and bis wife had to walk the 15 km from Nyurba to Nyurbachan at night. The drivers of hired cars explained to them that on that day the police had forbidden them to take any passengers to Nyurbachan.
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[6]
MOSCOW. On 7 October 1976 the police came to Alexander Ginzburg’s Moscow flat and took him to the police station. He was kept there for three-and-a-half hours. The police told Ginzburg to pay a fine for infringing the residence regulations and to leave Moscow within 72 hours. Ginzburg refused to sign the record of an infringement of regulations, declaring that he had not spent more than three consecutive days in Moscow.
Ginzburg’s conviction has not yet been ‘liquidated’. As he was released from imprisonment in January 1972 after a 5-year sentence (CCE 24.11 [10]), his conviction, according to Article 57 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, will be liquidated in January 1977. Until then, although his wife and two small children live (and are registered) in Moscow, he does not have the right to live in Moscow. ‘To live’ means, in this case, ‘to spend more than three consecutive days there’.
The police are constantly harassing Ginzburg (CCE 32.18, CCE 34.14, CCE 41.14 [2]).
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[7]
LENINGRAD. A few months ago, at the Kirov factory (formerly the Putilov factory) about 400 people held an ‘Italian-style’ strike for three days (appearing to work but only producing 3-4 per cent of the norm), in protest at the administration’s bad treatment of the prisoners working at the factory.
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[8]
LATVIA. At the beginning of 1976 leaflets in the Latvian language were distributed here, calling on Latvians to fight for the democratic rights guaranteed by the Constitution. The leaflets were signed ‘Democratic Union of Latvian Youth’. The text had been ‘compiled’ from letters cut out of newspapers and stuck on pieces of paper. Evidently, they had then been photocopied on an ‘Era’ machine.
In the spring, leaflets in Russian and Latvian calling on the Russians to leave Latvia were distributed. The leaflets were compiled and signed in the same way.
In the spring and summer typewritten leaflets on economic themes appeared.
In the summer, typewritten leaflets demanding the liberation of political prisoners in the Soviet Union were distributed, as well as others stating that the Helsinki Agreement “only serves to strengthen legal recognition of the territorial gains made by the USSR during the Second World War”.
At the end of the academic year leaflets which had ‘Freedom for Latvia!’ printed on them by hand, appeared in schools. Special written work was carried out in schools, during which pupils had to write in their usual handwriting and in printed letters.
In the summer the slogan ‘Free Soviet political prisoners!’ was written in large black letters on the wall which blocks the view of the Riga Central Prison from the direction of the railway.
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[9]
MOSCOW. The soviet executive committee of the Sverdlov district in Moscow has made the parish council of St Pimen’s Church dismiss three members of the church choir who are under 40 years old. Then the committee ordered that the caretaker should be dismissed from the church after he had refused to inform on the church elder and the treasurer.
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[10]
LENINGRAD. On 15 August 1976 a KGB official read a lecture to the employees of the Pushkin Museum. He called on his hearers to be vigilant, warned them against contacts with foreigners, and made them promise to ring the KGB about every group of foreign tourists that visited the museum.
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[11]
BERLIN-MOSCOW. Students from East Germany at Soviet educational establishments are warned, before their departure for the USSR, that if they become friendly with students from capitalist countries in the USSR, they will immediately be sent home.
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[12]
MOLDAVIA. In August 1976 Romanian leader Ceausescu was due to travel through Moldavia.
As there are very strong pro-Romanian sentiments in Moldavia, the authorities, fearing an enthusiastic reception for the Romanian leader, declared that Ceausescu would be travelling through on 3 August, but his journey took place on 2 August [1].
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[13]
VILNIUS. At the beginning of September three pupils from the eleventh class were expelled for their friendship with Viktor Petkus (CCE 38.3, CCE 40.10).
Petkus was sentenced to 25 years under Article 58 of the old Criminal Code at the end of the 1940s, but in the 1950s he was amnestied. He received a second sentence of 7 years for ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’.
Petkus has been given a message through a third party: “We’ll put you inside, just wait!”
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[14]
MOSCOW. On 25 June 1976 A. A. Zinoviev, D.Sc. (Philosophy), protested at a press conference which he had called against the refusal of the Soviet authorities to allow him to travel to a meeting of logicians organized by the Finnish Academy of Sciences. Zinoviev is a member of that Academy.
A few years ago, Professor Zinoviev was dismissed from his post as head of the department of logic at the Moscow University Faculty of Philosophy, partly for his support of people who ‘signed’ petitions. He is now a senior research officer in the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy.
After the press conference Zinoviev was deprived of the opportunity of reading lectures at the university and expelled from the Philosophy Society.
An order has been issued to expunge references to his works.
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[15]
KIEV. In the volume Problems of General and Clinical Physiology of the Cardiovascular System (Kiev, Naukova Dumka, 1976) the bibliography in one of the articles includes the titles of some articles by a group of authors, one of whom is Sergei Kovalyov.
When the volume was published, it turned out that Kovalyov’s name had been deleted.
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[16]
MOSCOW. On 26 September a regular ‘Sunday concert’ (a mini-rally of unofficial songs, CCE 41.13) took place in the wood near the Firsanovka station.
The first part of the concert was dedicated to the memory of Vera Matveyeva, a member of the Unofficial Song Club, who died in August this year at the age of 30. Many songs that she had composed or performed were sung, as well as songs and poems dedicated to her. As at other ‘Sunday concerts’, anyone who wanted to could perform.
During the interval between two performances, Valery Abramkin’s declaration to the Procurator of Tuapse (CCE 42.3) was read out.
300-400 people came to the concert; ‘observers’ were also present, some of them with cameras.
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[17]
MOSCOW. On 11 August 1976, senior engineer Alexander Rykov of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy (CCE 38.8) was visited at work by Captain M. G. Devonar, an official of the Moscow KGB.
Devonar suggested that Rykov should collaborate with the KGB, tell them about the black market in books, and find out who ‘Behemoth’ was (this is the nickname of some speculator in books). Rykov refused the offer made to him, in spite of threats made by Devonar.
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[18]
MOSCOW. The report published on 2 February 1976 in the American newspaper International Herald Tribune that A. Sokolov, deputy head of section 2 of Glavlit (the Soviet censorship agency) had obtained emigrant, anti-Soviet and other publications confiscated by the censors and had sold them on the black market (CCE 38.19 [33]) aroused alarm at Glavlit.
All issues of the paper were confiscated and locked up in safes. A translation of the article went round the desks of highly-placed officials. The old Stalinist apparatus man V. Fomichev (first deputy to the head of Glavlit) was appointed to investigate the matter. The Party committee and the management were inundated with anonymous letters, many stating that Fomichev and other senior officials had received their share of books from Sokolov. At a closed Party meeting they tried to justify themselves: ‘It’s not true, we don’t have any books, you can go and look in our homes.’
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[19]
On 29 September Mikhail Bernstam (CCE 40.15 [8]) left the USSR.
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NOTES
- See Pravda’s report on Ceausescu’s meeting with Moldavian officials, 3 August 1976.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 