7 ENTRIES
[1]
LATVIA (BALTIC)
In Riga a new procedure for applying for permission to emigrate was introduced in September 1978.
If any members of a family unit which is living together decide to stay in the USSR, the soviet executive committee stipulates that they must exchange their flat or share their existing one with other people: in some instances, all members of the family, those who wish to emigrate as well as those remaining, are required to move to a smaller flat (the size of which depends on the number remaining in the USSR).
This must be done, the committee stipulates, before an application to emigrate is submitted. Otherwise the committee will not register the report from the place of residence, which is required by the Department of Visas & Registration (OVIR) before it will accept applications.
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At the beginning of 1978 the soviet executive committee in Riga’s Proletarsky district ordered that all four members of the family of Khaim I. Kilov and Sh. I. Elman, three of whom wish to emigrate, must move into a one-room flat.
The “Board for the Calculation & Allocation of Living Space” at the Riga City soviet executive committee is responsible for the registration of reports from places of residence.
On 11 December 1978, Petkevich, who heads of this Board, gave Kilov and Elman confirmation of the order of the district soviet executive committee. He did not deny that the order was illegal, but suggested that “trying to file a complaint about it” would be futile. The republican OVIR did not help either.
After this, Kilov and Elman sent complaints to the following: the Latvian SSR Procurator; the USSR Procurator (twice); the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs (twice); OVIR at the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD); and the Administrative Agencies Department of the Latvian Communist Party Central Committee.
Some of the complaints were forwarded to the Riga City soviet executive committee. A reply, signed by the above-mentioned Petkevich, confirmed the orders of the district Committee.
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In 1974, in connection with the case of Ladyzhensky, Kilov and Elman received a caution from the KGB (CCE 34.3).
As a result, in 1976 Khaim Kilov was not reappointed at the Computer Centre of Latvia University, where he worked as a programmer; he was also barred from lecturing to the students (CCE 43.14 [4]). In January 1979 he was also barred from lecturing to the qualification-improvement classes, even though this is not considered educational work.
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[2]
DAGESTAN (North Caucasus)
the Naftaliyev family
On 5 January Naftali Mardakhayevich NAFTALIYEV was summoned to the Head of the Dagestan ASSR MVD Passport Office, Lieutenant-Colonel Khalibekov. The latter stated that Naftaliyev and his family would be issued visas to emigrate to Israel when the required documents (in particular, a document stating that the whole family were no longer registered in the city) were presented.
On 26 January Naftaliyev took all the documents indicated by Khalibekov to the Passport Office. However, Khalibekov declared that it was also necessary to submit a written statement from the former husband of Naftaliyev’s daughter, L. S. Mardakhayev, permitting Pyotr Naftaliyev (b. 1977) to emigrate to Israel.
Naftaliyev stated that his daughter Bike’s marriage with Mardakhayev had not been registered at a registry office. They had separated before the child was born. The boy had been adopted by Naftaliyev himself. Mardekhayev had not once visited the child or given his mother any help.
When they found out about the Naftaliyevs’ decision to emigrate to Israel with the child, the Mardakhayevs sent a complaint to the Makhachkala City MVD, in connection with which the Naftaliyevs were not issued with exit visas.
Having lost their residence permits, Naftaliyev and his wife, with their two adult children and six other children, cannot be given work and have to stay in other people’s homes.
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[3]
KHARKOV (East Ukraine)
the Paritsky family
Alexander and Polina Paritsky (CCE 47.8-4, CCE 48.17-1). residents of Kharkov, and their two daughters (aged 12 and seven) have tried for three years to obtain permission to emigrate to Israel.
During this period the Paritsky family have been subjected to numerous insults and repressive actions.
On one occasion a police-officer gave their 12-year-old daughter a summons ordering her parents to go to the police station. Here the Head of the Criminal Investigation Department said that he had not summoned the Paritskys and had not sent a police-officer.
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On the evening of 13 October 1978, without presenting any documents, eight people broke into the Paritskys’ flat, shouting “Everyone stay where you are! Don’t move!”
The children were terrified and could not sleep all night. In reply to a complaint, the Procurator said that he could not find any violation of the law, since “there is no doctor’s certificate stating that the children were frightened and the door to the flat is not broken.”
On 27 January 1979 an article entitled ‘Contraband’ appeared in the paper Evening Kharkov. In it Alexander Paritsky was called a slanderer, speculator and racist. The children suffered greatly as a result of the article. The elder daughter, Dorina, did not want to go to school. The younger, Anna, broke out in a rash on her face. At school the children were called ‘contrabandists’. Polina Paritskaya has written to women’s organizations in Israel, the USA, England and France, appealing for support in defending her children against the tyranny and lawlessness of the authorities.
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[4]
ELSEWHERE
In February Alexander Miller (CCE 49.15 [9] and CCE 51.16 [16]) wrote to Chancellor Schmidt of West Germany, Senator Jackson and Pope John Paul II asking them to help him to emigrate.
A. Miller is 32 years old. He is a qualified teacher. His address: Uzbek SSR, Bukhara Region, Navoi, P.O. box 15, GRP 18.
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Ambartsum Khlgatyan (CCE 51.1), a member of the Armenian Helsinki Group, has been continuing his efforts to obtain permission to emigrate from the USSR. From November to February, he sent four appeals to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet.
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In a 1 March letter to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet Yevgeny Nikolayev (CCE 51.11 and CCE 52.15-2 [4]) points out that he renounced Soviet citizenship on 25 November 1977 (CCE 48.12) and requests permission to be allowed out of the USSR:
‘If you let me go then neither the International Labour Organization nor any other foreign organization will demand that you be held accountable for my fate …’
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In February L. A. Drozdova (CCE 47.8-1 [4], CCE 48) sent a declaration to Mogilnitsky, Procurator of the Belorussian SSR. In it she related how she was summoned to the Procuracy of the October district of Minsk; she complied with the summons, which was signed by Assistant Procurator Voitusenko.
As well as the Assistant Procurator, a further four people were present, one of whom called himself a chief of police and another a KGB officer. Drozdova refused to talk to them. She was threatened and forcibly detained for about an hour.
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On 3 January Tamara Los (CCE 49.15) was summoned to OVIR, where OVIR officials and a KGB officer chatted with her. She was shown a file in which, in the words of the KGB officer, her ‘case’ was building up. They talked to Los in a very rude manner and threatened her with prosecution. They told her: “You’d have been shot straight away in 1953!”
They suggested to Tamara Los that she submit an invitation from abroad; it did not matter who sent it or from where. They promised that if she did so they would not hinder her and would let her out of the USSR.
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Braunas Jaugelis (b. 1930) lives in Kaunas.
On completing his training at an institute, he worked as a mechanical engineer. In 1961 he was dismissed because he applied to emigrate to the USA.
In 1893 B. Jaugelis’s father became a US citizen. As early as 1946 Jaugelis began to make attempts to locate his relatives in America. With the help of the Red Cross, he managed to establish correspondence with them.
In 1969 Jaugelis was evicted from his flat and forced to move to a dwelling not suitable for habitation. In 1976 he again applied to emigrate to the USA. On 5 August of the same year Jaugelis was placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he was held until 13 October. In 1978, after submitting another application, he was again forcibly interned in a psychiatric hospital, where he was kept from 16 November to 28 December.
Jaugelis has not received a reply to any of his applications. His address: Lithuanian SSR, Kaunas, 40 Basanavicius Street, flat 46.
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[5]
UKRAINE
Pentecostalists
On 6 October 1978 KGB officers forcibly took N. N. Kunitsa (CCE 47.8-2 [3]) from Kiev to Dubno (Rovno Region), where he lives. He had attempted to meet a representative of the US Consulate in Kiev.
A Pentecostalist, Kunitsa has been trying for a long time to obtain permission for himself and his family to emigrate from the USSR for religious reasons. He has been subjected to repeated persecution as a result; fines, searches, summonses to the Procuracy, and threats.
His daughter Nadezhda, a pupil in the 9th grade at School No. 1 in Dubno, was given a mark of 2 for behaviour, because she refused to go to the October Revolution demonstration.
His son Ilya, a pupil in the 10th grade at the same school, wrote a declaration against his father’s emigration as a result of pressure exerted on him by KGB officers with the cooperation of his physical education teacher. On 4 February he demanded to have the declaration returned, as he had renounced what he had written. The demand was supported by his five brothers and sisters, who refused to go to school until the declaration was returned.
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Ukrainian Pentecostalists who have been trying to emigrate have not been receiving the invitations sent them by post. They have appealed for help over this to Swartz, an official of the American Consulate.
On 21 December 1978 F. Melnik from Rovno was detained outside the USA Consulate. He had arranged a meeting the day before. He was taken to the Lenin district office of internal affairs (OVD) where he was searched, detained for six hours, then put on a train to Rovno.
On 16 January 1979 a meeting between Swartz and some Pentecostalists was supposed to take place on a street in Kiev. The day before, Vasily Shelyup was summoned to the Rovno KGB for a talk, after which a ‘guard’ was placed outside his house. Fedorchuk, a second Pentecostalist from Rovno supposed to take part in the planned meeting, managed to get to Kiev. On 15 January, when the Pentecostalists were driving through Kiev to the rendezvous in a car belonging to one of them, they were detained and taken to a police station.
KGB officers took their place in the car and went to the meeting. Pretending to be the Pentecostalists, they started shouting at Swartz: “You betrayed our brothers!” and beat him up. Swartz later discovered the true identity of those who came to meet him.
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On 10 January Pentecostalists and Baptists who had renounced their Soviet citizenship sent a complaint to the International Court of the United Nations. They pointed to the unremitting persecution of believers and the Soviet Union’s failure to observe the International Covenants regarding human rights.
Lists of those who had renounced Soviet citizenship, together with copies of renunciation declarations dated 21 January and 25 August 1978, were attached to the complaint.
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[6]
Those who Have Left
In December 1978 Josif Krass (CCE 51.16 [27]) left the USSR. The laboratory where he worked was disbanded.
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On 4 January Natan (Anatoly) Malkin left the USSR after serving a three-year sentence for refusing to serve in the army (CCE 42.4-4). When his case was already being examined by OVIR he again began receiving summonses to the Military Registration Office.
On 5 January an order arrived at his flat summoning him to the Procuracy in connection with his non-appearance at the Military Office.
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[7]
JULIA ZAKS
On 9 February Andrei Tverdokhlebov’s sister Julia Zaks [1], a member of the Relief Fund for Political Prisoners, left the USSR.
On 27 December 1978 her entrance-pass for work was taken away from her. On 28 December she was summoned (after a long interval) to the investigator in charge of the ‘forgery’ case (CCE 49.7 [5]). The interrogation did not take place, because the investigator did not turn up.
On 29 December she was informed that she had received permission to emigrate. At the beginning of February J. Zaks appealed to OVIR, requesting that her visa be extended by a few days. After the OVIR official had already authorized the extension, Zaks was summoned to the Head of OVIR, who told her sharply that her visa would not be extended by a single day and that any delay in emigrating might cause her ‘serious unpleasantness’.
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NOTES
- Years later, in 1999, Zaks launched the first online version of Bukovsky’s Archive of classified Central Committee and KGB documents (https://webct.biz/archive/buk-rus.html).
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A Chronicle of Current Events 