8 ENTRIES
[1]
G. DAVYDOV
On 5 April 1979 a court met to decide whether Georgy Davydov should be reinstated in his job (CCE 52.6). Davydov was reinstated in his post and paid for his enforced absence.
On the same day the police demanded that V. Isakova, G. Davydov’s wife, leave Tulun (Irkutsk Region). Isakova appealed for a temporary residence permit until 16 July, when her husband’s exile term ended, but was told that she could be given only a permanent residence permit, for which she would have to give up her permit to live in Leningrad.
Furthermore, the police threatened Isakova that a ‘prophylactic case’ would be brought against her for parasitism. (Isakova has worked for 22 years; she has two daughters, one of whom had not yet reached the age of eight.)
On 11 May Divisional Police Inspector Medvedskikh, who was ‘overseeing’ Davydov, made out an order for Isakova to have a medical examination to establish whether she was fit for work. At the end of May Isakova was forced to leave Tulun.
On 16 July Davydov was released at the end of his exile sentence.
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[2]
Over a short period of time Vladimir Slepak (CCE 50.8-3), exiled to the Chita Region, was on two occasions in hospital in a serious condition.
However, Yu. K. Karagezyan, a department head at the MVD Main Administration, claimed in a letter to Slepak’s wife that … ‘he has not been complaining, or sending statements to the local authorities; he is in good health.’
M. Slepak appealed to Brezhnev for permission for herself and her husband to emigrate to Israel, where the rest of their family live.
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[3]
Oles Serhiyenko [Russ. Sergienko] (CCE 52.5-2) spent a long time trying to obtain permission for his mother Oksana Meshko and his wife Zvenislava Vivchar to visit him (his place of exile is in a border zone). They did not come until the end of June.
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[4]
ALEXANDER PODRABINEK
Alexander Podrabinek (CCE 50.7) was sent to serve his exile term in the settlement of Chuna in Irkutsk Region, where he arrived on 4 January 1979 (his term of exile would therefore end in December 1981).
However, on 18 March he was unexpectedly transferred to a new place of exile — in the settlement of Ust-Mera in the Oimyakon district of the Yakut ASSR. He was taken under guard when 80 km away from home — he had not previously been informed that his place of exile had been changed. On 4 May Podrabinek received an official note signed by Lieutenant-Colonel A. D. Vladimirov, an official of Irkutsk UVD. The note stated that a mistake had occurred, as a result of which Podrabinek had gone to Chuna.
‘When the mistake was discovered, you were escorted to the Yakut ASSR. Your personal belongings and labour book were sent to you at your exile address on 25 April 1979.’
On 18 May, Podrabinek wrote a statement in which he demanded:
- information as to the resolution of the Irkutsk Regional UVD determining the change in my place of exile;
- the issuing of a resolution about my detention between 18 and 22 March 1979, or a resolution calculating my exile sentence from 23 March;
- in return for the relevant receipts — compensation for V. Sirotinin, V. Khvostenko and me for the cost of transferring my effects from Chuna to Ust-Nera;
- the punishment of those responsible for omitting to inform me of what measures were taken to safeguard my possessions and my home;
- an apology for the ‘technical mistake’ committed by the Irkutsk UVD;
- a reply to my statement in the legally appointed time.
The reply was dated 30 May:
‘Re: your statement of 18 May 1979: the UVD of the Irkutsk Regional EC has nothing further to add to our answer to your letter of 4 May.’
In the district Centre at Ust-Nera Podrabinek was refused a job in his specialty. The hospital’s chief doctor, V. M. Marenny, stated that he and Podrabinek ‘stand at different ideological poles’. Podrabinek sent a statement to the Oimyakon district Procuracy, protesting against discriminatory restrictions, on ideological grounds, regarding the right to work. Demin, Senior Assistant to the Procurator of the Yakut A SSR, replied that the refusal to employ Podrabinek was justified, since there were, in his case, some restrictions as to employment, connected with educational and other purely moral considerations.
Podrabinek complained about this reply in a statement to the RSFSR Procurator:
‘No court has deprived me of the right to work in my profession; my qualifications are confirmed by an appropriate diploma. Until I am disqualified as a medical worker, I have the right to employment in state medical institutions, irrespective of the subjective evaluation of my personal qualities by the director of the institution! In July Podrabinek obtained a job in his specialty (as a doctor’s assistant [feldsher]).’
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[5]
Valentina Pailodze (trial, CCE 51.2) is serving her term of exile on the Saralzhin State Farm in the Uil district of Aktyubinsk Region (Kazakh SSR). Valery Marchenko is also exiled there (see CCE 53.19-2).
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[6]
ANTONYUK
At the end of March 1979 Zinovy Antonyuk (CCE 52.6) was admitted to the urology department of the Irkutsk Regional Tubercular Clinic.
In May his doctor Z. M. Antonova, Head of the department, said that he must stay in the clinic for at least six months, for, despite treatment, his illness was in an active stage.
Soon after this, Senior Nurse L. A. Mashinskaya advised Antonyuk to stop writing to his friends and acquaintances, to correspond only with his wife, and to send away the two Irkutsk citizens who were regularly visiting him (the married couple V. Glybin and E. Trofimova, who worked at the Irkutsk Teachers’ Training Institute, Chronicle).
She also advised him ‘not to be friendly with anyone’ since people had been placed in the clinic ‘specially to observe you’, and to destroy all letters and notes, since ‘there might be a search’. Mashinskaya told Antonyuk that otherwise he would be discharged, yet he was still in need of treatment. He replied that he could not tolerate attempts to frighten him.
On 26 June Antonova informed Antonyuk that he would be discharged in two days’ time. That same day Antonyuk went to buy a ticket for a flight to Bodaibo, but managed to get one only for 6 July. Nevertheless, he was discharged on 28 June, although patients are usually permitted to stay at the clinic until the day they have booked for their departure.
By way of farewell Antonova told Antonyuk that his illness was still in an active stage and that he would need treatment for another year. She said that he should get a light job, for example as a watchman.
In Bodaibo Antonyuk was admitted to the tubercular department of the district hospital.
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[7]
CHORNOVIL
State farm officials began to give Vyacheslav Chornovil (CCE 52.6) work beyond his strength, and when he refused to do it he was issued a reprimand.
He submitted a statement requesting to be dismissed ‘at his own request’ and two weeks later, on 23 July, he did not go to work. However, he was neither dismissed nor served with a dismissal notice, and his labour book was not returned to him. Chornovil tried through the courts and the Procuracy to make the state farm authorities observe the Code of Labour Law. Although he has only just stopped working and has not officially been dismissed, the police are already threatening him with prosecution for parasitism.
On 30 July Chornovil sent a statement to the Minister of Internal Affairs of the Yakut A SSR. In the statement he describes the national antipathy between the Russians and the Yakuts, recalling the mass riots in Yakutsk in mid-June (six people were killed, many injured, fire engines were overturned and soldiers were called in because the police were unable to cope), and reports that Yakuts have attacked him.
‘… in such cases I am guided solely by my instinct of self-defence. The district to which I am exiled was chosen for me by the MVD.
‘Despite the fact that I am legally entitled to live in any part of this district, the Lenin district MVD purposely sent me to a Yakut settlement. It is virtually impossible to establish friendly relations with the local population, due to the official policy of prophylaxis,* which is implemented constantly and was started even before my arrival …’
Chornovil asks for his place of exile to be changed for another, more ‘Russian’ district of Yakutia (see also ‘Exiles on Holiday’ in the section ‘Arrests, Searches. Interrogations’).
[*The population was warned to keep away from Chornovil, who was described as a dangerous state criminal.]
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[8]
GANDZYUK
When his exile term ended, in October 1978, V. Gandzyuk (CCE 51.10) prepared to travel home from Podgornoye, but he was forced to delay his departure. This is what he wrote in a letter while on his way home:
‘On the evening of 10 November, at home, a stranger from Kolpashevo hit me on the head with a bottle, knocked me out and robbed me. He took the 180 roubles I had saved for my journey. He decided that he had killed me. But on 11 November I somehow came to.
‘When I reported the incident to the police, they began to push me about, insult me and brazenly blackmail me, making out that nothing had happened, that I had invented it all and was telling lies in order to give them work to do. I had hidden the money, they said, had staged the robbery myself and was now giving false evidence. They charged me under Article 180, part 2 with giving false evidence and began to threaten me with seven years. On 14 November I was arrested and imprisoned. I remained there until the 30th. But then they caught the fellow who had hit me on the head and robbed me; after attacking me in Kolpashevo he had killed someone else and confessed about what he had done to me.
‘I was released and placed under six months’ surveillance and they began summoning me to Kolpashevo for a confrontation. And I was not allowed to leave Podgornoye. Now in two or three months I will be summoned to court.’
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A Chronicle of Current Events 