SPECIAL PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS. ORDINARY HOSPITALS.
This report has been compiled largely from four issues (15-18) of the Information Bulletin of the Working Commission : 15 (8 March 1979), 16 (30 April 1979), 17 (22 June 1979) and 18 (12 August 1979).
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The Working Commission sent part of the material published in Information Bulletin No. 15 to the chief doctors of the hospitals listed in it. The material was accompanied by the following letter:
“If, in presenting the facts, we have been guilty of any inaccuracy, please inform us and send us corrections …“
The Working Commission intends to continue informing relevant persons and organizations about facts it has made public (see also CCE 48.12).
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SPECIAL PSYCHIATRIC HOSPITALS
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Alma-Ata SPH (town of Talgar)
In September 1976 Anatoly Lupinos [1] was transferred here from Dnepropetrovsk SPH. At the beginning of 1979 he was taken away somewhere.
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TASHKENT SPH
In the spring Vladimir Rozhdestvov (CCE 47.2, CCE 48.12) was subjected to increased doses of haloperidol and trisedil. Evidently this is connected with the fact that Rozhdestvov received a letter which bypassed the hospital censorship.
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In May Vera Lipinskaya (CCE 52.7) was transferred to an ordinary psychiatric hospital.
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DEMYANOV
In mid-June Nikolai Demyanov (CCE 52.7) was transferred here.
He came from Perm Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 1, where at the end of April he had been prescribed a course of treatment with the drug motiden-depo. The chief doctor, Nelly Petrovna Mityagina, accused him: of rude behaviour (Demyanov refused to answer questions which had no connection with medicine); of sending letters bypassing the censorship; and of contact with dissidents.
Demyanov’s transfer to Tashkent SPH took place following a decision by a medical commission (composed of Mityagina, the Head of the Sixth Section, Yulia Alexandrovna Sazhayeva, and court representative Selivanov) which met on 11 May. Demyanov refused to admit to the commission that he was ill and stated that he had also been sane before he was placed in a psychiatric hospital.
In connection with the transfer of Nikolai Demyanov to an SPH the Working Commission wrote to the executive committee of the World Psychiatric Association, to the British Royal College of Psychiatrists, and to Amnesty International:
‘The Working Commission draws this incident to your attention because it clearly illustrates the punitive functions of Soviet psychiatry and demonstrates that it is not the patient’s mental state but his undesirable behaviour which is often the cause of both intensified compulsory treatment and indefinite isolation within the walls of an SPH.’
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Chernyakhovsk SPH
At the beginning of 1979 Alexander Yankovich (CCE 49.10) was transferred to an ordinary hospital.
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Sychovka SPH
Boris Kovgar (CCE 39.3) has been here since 1976.
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RAFALSKY
After World War Two, Victor Parfentevich RAFALSKY (b. 1919) worked as a headmaster in the Ivano-Frankovsk Region (west Ukraine).
In the 1950s he was arrested on political charges. He simulated mental illness and was declared not responsible at the Serbsky Institute, whereupon he was sent to the Leningrad SPH. In March 1956 Rafalsky escaped. Six months later he was arrested in Ivano-Frankovsk and taken back to the Leningrad SPH. Later Rafalsky spent the years 1962-1964 in an SPH.
In 1968 he was arrested in Ternopol Region by KGB officials. The manuscript of a book, written by Rafalsky in Ukrainian and entitled The Travels of Three Spendthrifts in Wonderland (a satirical work about three Africans in the USSR), was confiscated from him. At the Serbsky Institute he was again declared not responsible and a court decided to send him to Dnepropetrovsk SPH. In 1971 Rafalsky was recommended for release, but the recommendation was rejected in court on the grounds that there was no guardian (Rafalsky has no relatives). Rafalsky was in Dnepropetrovsk from July 1968 until September 1976, when he was transferred to Sychyovka.
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Ordinary Hospitals
On 26 February Arvydas Cehanavicius was released from psychiatric hospital (CCE 52.7).
In May or June he was hospitalized again. He is now in the Sixth Section of Kaunas Psychiatric Hospital (75 Kuzmos Street), where he is being given injections of tizertsin and stelazin. Arvydas’s mother received a letter from the Chief Psychiatrist of the Lithuanian SSR, asserting that her son is dangerously ill and in need of compulsory treatment.
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PURTOV
Sergei Purtov (CCE 52.7) is in the Fifth Section of the Kashchenko Psychiatric Hospital in Leningrad (Gatchina, Nikolskoye village).
On 8 May Purtov was examined by a medical commission (the Head of the Medical Department, Edward Grigorevich Semenyak, Section Head Vyacheslav Serafimovich Timoshin, and Purtov’s doctor, Tamara Alexandrovna Bolotova) which recommended the continuation of compulsory treatment for another six months. He was prescribed aminazin (100 ml three times a day), bromide and camphor.
On 6 June Purtov was diagnosed as suffering from ‘a paranoid-hysterical form of psychopathy’ (the previous diagnosis was ‘schizophrenia’). Sergei Purtov’s new doctor, Sergei Semyonovich, told him that the main reason for keeping him in hospital were his letters to the German Embassy enquiring whether he had any relatives in Germany.
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SHIPILOV
Vasily Grigoryevich SHIPILOV (in CCE 48.12 and CCE 51.11 he is erroneously called ‘Ivanovich’) is still in Krasnoyarsk Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 1.
Yury Belov (CCE 48.12-2), who himself had earlier been under compulsory treatment in this hospital, has written to the Head of the Section:
‘Vasily Grigorevich Shipilov, an Orthodox believer, has been a patient in your section for over a year. During the past 40 years he has several times been arrested by the authorities for vagrancy and ‘Counter-Revolutionary propaganda’. Shipilov walked about Siberia preaching the work of God and speaking the truth about the lawlessness and severity of Stalin’s regime. Shipilov is badly treated in your hospital; he is constantly beaten up by the orderlies, who mock his observance of religious rituals …
‘Shipilov does not consider himself a citizen of the USSR, since he has never been registered in any way, or had a passport After his discharge he would like to shut himself away in the Zhirovitsy community for the rest of his days… The continued confinement of Shipilov in a state institution is equivalent to a slow and agonizing death, and condemns him to new and numerous insults and beatings by the staff and the atheist patients.
‘I ask you to recommend to a court that he be released from compulsory treatment.’
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Alexander Sergeyevich LYAPIN (CCE 51.19-1, CCE 52.7), who is in the 11th Section of Leningrad Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 3 (Druzhnosele village), was examined by a regular medical commission on 18 May.
Since he refused to reconsider his views, the commission recommended that he remain in the psychiatric hospital for another six months. The doctors consider that one of the symptoms of his illness is “a subjective and negative perception of reality”.
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LEVENKOV
Nikolai Vasilyevich LEVENKOV (b. 1924), a participant in the Great Patriotic War, is in Gorky Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 1 (Gorky, Prioksky district, Lyakhovo village).
After the war Levenkov graduated with distinction from the Gorky Medical Institute. He worked as a doctor in Gorky Regional Hospital, defended his Cand.Sci. thesis and was a Party member. As a result of his critical remarks about the economic situation in the USSR he had a series of conflicts with Party organs.
In 1968 the KGB took an interest in him. By 1969 Levenkov had prepared his Doctoral thesis, which he was not given the opportunity to defend. In July 1976 Levenkov was expelled from the Party and forced to leave his job. Only after numerous appeals to official bodies was he given a job in a polyclinic on the outskirts of Gorky.
In 1976 Levenkov wrote a work entitled The Soviet Regime and Medicine in which, on the basis of his own experience and that of his colleagues, he concludes that there is a serious crisis in the Soviet health service. Levenkov was arrested as he tried to duplicate the manuscript. A medical commission at Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 1, with Section Head Igor Ivanovich Buzuyev as chairman, declared him not responsible (the diagnosis was ‘schizophrenia’). Since 1977 Levenkov has been undergoing compulsory treatment (his doctor is Klavdia Dmitrievna Tveritneva; his Section Head is Alexei Semyonovich Tveritnev). The address of Levenkov’s wife is; Gorky, 56 Kovalikhinskaya Street, flat 25.
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KHUTORSKOI
On 1 June Yakov Agafonovich KHUTORSKOI was forcibly hospitalized in Nalchik (Kabardino-Balkar ASSR).
He is in the Third Section of the Republican Psychoneurological Clinic: the chief doctor is Anatoly Kuzhbievich Shakov, the Section Head is Valentina Petrovna Dyakova. Earlier, on 26 January, Khutorskoi was detained by police officials at Moscow s Leningrad Station. Some private notes were taken from him when he was searched.
Khutorskoi (b. 1915) participated in the Great Patriotic War and is an electrician.
He was first arrested in December 1967. The reason was his manuscript (written under the pseudonym ‘Ya. A. Tarsky’) on the subject of economics, which he had shown to a friend. A first medical commission in Nalchik declared Khutorskoi responsible; a second, which was conducted with Khutorskoi as an in-patient in the town of Ordzhonikidze, diagnosed that he was suffering from ‘paranoid development of the personality’. From November 1968 to September 1971 Khutorskoi was in Kazan SPH, then he was transferred to his home town, to the Republican Psychiatric Hospital, from which he was discharged in 1973.
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GALLYAMOV
On 4 May Salavat Gallyamov, a student at the Bashkortostan University, was placed in a psychiatric hospital in Ufa [2].
In this connection the Christian Committee wrote to Chirikov, the Bashkir KGB Chairman:
‘On 4 May this year Salavat Gallyamov, a Christian believer who attended the Ufa Orthodox Church, was forcibly place in a psychiatric hospital in Ufa (4 Vladivostokskaya Street) …
‘As we have learned, this act of repressive psychiatry was carried out on your personal instructions. The punishment for believing in God meted out to S. Gallyamov is not unique in Bashkiria … According to our information, over the past few years about ten newly converted Christians in Bashkiria have been arrested for their religious convictions, sent forcibly to psychiatric hospitals and declared mentally ill.
‘The Christian Committee intends to protest to the appropriate state authorities about the actions of the Bashkir KGB. We are also convinced that the international Christian public will not ignore the fate of its persecuted fellow-believers.’
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YANKOV
On 6 July Gavriil Yankov (CCE 51.11) was placed in Moscow Psychiatric Hospital No. 13.
Yankov had come to Moscow to try to get an annulment of the decision ordering his expulsion from Moscow and depriving him of the right to live there. On 6 July he was summoned to the UVD and managed to arrange a meeting with Lieutenant Tyurin.
After the meeting he was detained and taken to Police Station 69, where a psychiatrist had a talk with him. Yankov was then placed in the 24th Section of Psychiatric Hospital No. 13 (the Head of the Section is Valentin Afanasyevich Pletnev. Yankov’s doctor is Victor Josifovich Brutman). Yankov was immediately prescribed stelazin (two tablets three times a day). He was not examined during the 24 hours following his admission to hospital, which is a violation of the regulations.
When Yankov’s sister talked to his doctor on 25 July, she was told that Yankov could be discharged If he left Moscow immediately. Yankov refused to do this.
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On 5 March a medical commission recommended the release of Nikolai Plakhotnyuk (CCE 52.7). At the beginning of June, the Regional Court refused to release Plakhotnyuk from compulsory treatment; the refusal was based on the fact that the medical commission’s recommendation contained no guarantee that Plakhotnyuk would not resume his ‘illegal activities’ after his release.
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Releases
At the beginning of 1979 Viktor Fedyanin (CCE 51.11) was released from Kishinyov [Chisinau] Psychiatric Hospital.
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On 2 March Alexander Kuzkin (CCE 51.15 [3]) was released from Moscow Regional Psychiatric Hospital No. 5 (Abramtsevo).
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YEVDOKIMOV
On 7 April the wife and son of Boris Yevdokimov (CCE 52.7) appealed to the Chairman of the Leningrad City Court for Yevdokimov’s release from compulsory treatment.
On 24 April Boris Yevdokimov was released. Not long before this Yevdokimov had been sent for tests to Leningrad Oncological Hospital, where he was given the preliminary diagnosis: “bronchial cancer of the left lung, inoperable”.
Invitations from clinics and private people in many European countries were sent to Yevdokimov. However, Leningrad OVIR has refused him an exit visa on the grounds that only a healthy person may go abroad at the invitation of a private individual (a doctor’s certificate of health is required), and the USSR Ministry of Health will not let him accept an invitation to go abroad for treatment, maintaining that his illness can be perfectly well treated in a Soviet hospital [3].
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KOMAROV
Alexander Komarov went to the USSR Ministry of Health in order to complain about the diagnosis he had been given: “psychopathy with litigious tendencies” (CCE 51.11).
There he was told that in order to have the diagnosis annulled he would have to undergo tests in Moscow’s Gannushkin Psychiatric Hospital (No. 4). On 20 March Komarov arrived at the hospital with a letter of recommendation. He was admitted to the 19th Section (his doctor was Igor Igorevich Etinger; the Section Head was Dina Yakovlevna Gofman).
On 17 April they began to give Komarov some sort of injections.
At the same time, he was placed in strict isolation; he was put in a separate ward, was no longer taken to the dining-room or outside for exercise with the other patients, and he was forbidden to make telephone calls. Neither Komarov nor his father was informed of the diagnosis arrived at or of the names of the drugs used in the injections. Komarov’s father was told that Alexander would be sent for treatment to a psychiatric hospital in Saratov (southwest Russia). He was transferred there at the end of April and on 12 May he was released.
Later it became known that Komarov had been given motiden-depo in the Gannushkin hospital. The diagnosis arrived at as a result of the tests was ‘schizophrenia’.
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In mid-1979 Alexander Shatravka (CCE 51.11) was released from a psychiatric hospital.
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On 9 April Vyacheslav Dzibalov (CCE 52.7) was released from a psychiatric hospital.
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On 15 February Yury Valov was released from the Central Psychiatric Hospital for the Moscow Region (CCE 52.7).
On 1 March he was again forcibly interned in the same hospital. On 15 March he was released. Evidently this hospitalization was connected with the elections taking place on 4 March.
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NOTES
- On Lupinos, see CCE 22.8 [5], CCE 30.9, CCE 39.3 and Name Index. (Earlier issues of the Chronicle spelt his surname ‘Lupynis’ or ‘Lupynos’).
↩︎ - Levenkov, Khutorskoi and Gallyamov were all released later in 1979. Khutorskoi was detained in the North Caucasian city of Nalchik (pop. 207,406; 1979).
↩︎ - Boris Yevdokimov died in October 1979 (CCE 54.20-2).
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