- 13-1. Chistopol Prison. Mordovia. Perm.
- 13-2. Other prisons & camps. In Defence of Political Prisoners. Releases
*
4. Other Prisons and Camps
PIDHORODETSKY
In his new, ‘criminal’ camp Vasyl Pidgorodetsky (CCE 53.19-1) met Khromushin, former Head of Operations at Perm Camp 35, known for his sadistic tendencies [addition CCE 55.12]. Now he is Assistant district Procurator responsible for places of imprisonment.
Pidgorodetsky [Ukr. Pidhorodetsky] asked Khromushin about the reason for his transfer.
Khromushin replied: “So you can be treated for otitis.”
P: “Why then am I not receiving treatment?”
Kh: “I don’t know.”
In his letters Pidgorodetsky describes the savage customs in the ‘criminal’ camp and says that he dreams of returning to a ‘political’ camp.
Pidgorodetsky is known to be suffering from hypertension and coronary weakness, irradiation in the left arm); he becomes short of breath when under physical strain. Now he complains of otitis and pains in his right arm.
In Perm Camp 35 he was operated on for a hernia, but the operational incision did not heal for several months and turned septic.
*
Myroslav Simchich (CCE 53.19-1) has written — first to the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD), then to the KGB — asking for a transfer, either back to Perm Camp 35 or to the Zaporozhe Region in Ukraine (his family lives in Zaporozhe), since conditions in his new camp [addition CCE 55.12] are very harsh for a man in his state of health, and it is very difficult for his wife to come and visit him.
In his statement to the KGB he wrote:
“27 years of imprisonment have ruined my health. During my eight years in Kolyma I lost nearly all my teeth through scurvy.”
In his new camp Simchich was asked to write to his family in Russian; he replied that he never had, and would not do so.
At the time of his transfer, Colonel Karpov, an official of the Perm Administration for Corrective Labour Institutions, had a talk with Simchich. At the end of the three-hour session Karpov said:
“I can see that they have not managed to re-educate you after 27 years, so I am certainly not going to try. You can stay with your beliefs.”
*
In mid-October Vasily Barladeanu [1] declared a hunger-strike, demanding the return of material confiscated on 25 September 1979 during a search of his wife’s home (this issue CCE 54.11).
Barladeanu’s fellow-prisoners are being questioned as to whether he is slandering the Soviet regime. He is being threatened with new charges. His term of imprisonment ends on 2 March 1980.
*
BUZINNIKOV
In July-August 1979 Yevgeny Buzinnikov [2] worked as an assistant electrician.
In July a pastry was confiscated from a parcel of printed matter. It was described in the report as “an unknown substance with a specific smell” (the pastry was savoury).
Division Head Lieutenant Shulyaev asked Buzinnikov whom he knew abroad, and insisted that prisoners were forbidden to correspond with people abroad. He actually confirmed that Buzinnikov was not receiving his mail because of the law under which he had been sentenced (Article 190-1, RSFSR Criminal Code).
Because penal “Institution 1-299/2” was being converted from a strict to a special-regime camp, Buzinnikov and the other prisoners were transferred on 9 October to “Institution 1-299/6”. They were transported in iron boxes fixed onto the backs of lorries, with 30-35 people (loaded from above) in each box.
On 28 October 1979, Buzinnikov was transferred to another camp. The address is: 623980 Sverdlovsk Region, Tavda-1, Bely Yar, penal institution 1-299/1-9. He works in the packaging workshop.
*
Alexander Ogorodnikov (CCE 51.15, CCE 52.11), who is in a camp in Komsomolsk-on-Amur (Soviet Far East), has been put in the cooler three times for ‘preaching’.
There have been no letters from him since April. In the autumn he was brought to Leningrad (this issue CCE 54.2-3). His sentence ends on 20 November.
*
JOSIF ZISELS
In June Josif Zisels (trial CCE 53.5) arrived in a camp at the address: 275000 USSR, Chernovitsy Region, Sokiryany, penal institution RCh-328/67-D (a camp with hard regime).
The daily timetable is:
- 5.30 am, reveille;
- 5.40, breakfast;
- 7.00-15.00, work;
- 16.20, dinner (according to medical norms the length of time between meals should not exceed eight hours);
- 17.00-20.00, free time;
- 20.00, roll-call, supper;
- 21.20, sleep.
The prisoners live in three-storey brick buildings. In Zisels’s section there are another 15 prisoners; the bunks are in two tiers.
The doctor exempted Zisels from work underground (extracting rocks from a mine) because of his stomach ulcer. At first Zisels was sent to mend sacks, then he was transferred to putting wooden boxes together.
*
At the beginning of August Zisels was issued a formal reprimand for asking whether he and other prisoners would be given milk at their new jobs. The reprimand was formulated: “He blackmailed the group into refusing to work.” In August Zisels fulfilled the norm and was rewarded with an extra two roubles to spend in the camp shop. After deductions, a total of eight roubles 39 kopecks was paid into his account for the month of August.
On 29 August 1979, Major Revutsky, Deputy Camp Head for Political Matters, and Captain Chernei, Head of Operations (his wife is the censor), informed Zisels that two letters from Pinkhos A. Podrabinek (CCE 48.7) had been confiscated. The reason was: administration officials found the subject matter incomprehensible and the references to foreign sources, confusing. Zisels managed to get the letters given to him on 7 September.
*
On 29 August 1979 about forty prisoners, including Zisels, left work at 12 noon and went to have dinner. The following day the camp Head, Yakovlev, ordered that everyone should go for dinner at 12 noon.
On 30 August Zisels refused to write down his socialist labour obligations. On 31 August he was transferred back to mending sacks. It was announced that those prisoners who did not fulfil the daily norm (65 sacks) would carry on working until they did so. On 1 September, 20 out of 21 prisoners failed to fulfil the norm and 11 of them, including Zisels, were made to stay behind and continue working. They refused to work and were all allowed to go.
Zisels wrote a statement concerning the unrealistic norm and the poor working conditions: the building is damp and the prisoners work standing up and stooping. On 3 September (2 September was a Sunday) there was no attempt to make anyone stay behind at the end of the working day. On 4 September Zisels was again sent back to putting boxes together.
On 7 September 1979, Zisels fulfilled 150% of the norm.
At the end of the shift the deputy brigade leader announced that the brigade would peel potatoes after work, both that day and the next; it was up to each prisoner to choose his day. Zisels decided he would go on the 8th. An hour later, on the orders of the camp Head, he was placed in the cooler for 15 days, for refusing to peel potatoes (only five out of 18 prisoners went to peel potatoes on the 7th; no one else was punished).
*
Zisels was not taken out to work while in the cooler, so he received correspondingly lower rations.
He was unable to sleep for four days and nights because of the cold. He was given a towel on the fifth day, soap and a toothbrush on the sixth. On 9 September a KGB official came to see him in the cooler. He told Zisels that if he continued helping other prisoners to write complaints and statements, things would end badly for him.
Zisels wrote to the Chernovitsy Regional Procuracy complaining about his unlawful sentence to the cooler. Four days later an Assistant Procurator of Sokiryany came to see him, but would discuss only Zisels’s complaint about the illegal reprimand; he refused to discuss the cooler sentence, saying he was ‘not authorized’ to do so.
*
On 15 September Zisels’s stomach ulcer got worse and he called the doctor.
The medicines the doctor prescribed (Almagel and Noshpa) were not available and he was treated with Besalol. The same day Revutsky and Captain Pushny, an officer of the Chernovtsy Region Office of Internal Affairs (OVD), came in response to Zisels’s complaint about the cold cell; they said they did not find it cold.
Throughout his remaining days in the cooler Zisels asked, repeatedly and without success, to be put on a regime that involved going to work, because of his illness. Zisels left the cooler on 22 September. The prisoners greeted him warmly.
*
On 1 October he sent statements to the Ukrainian Procuracy and the Ukrainian Administration for Corrective Labour Institutions, in which he listed all the injustices perpetrated against him during the previous three months.
On 5 October Zisels’s wife sent the following letter to the camp Head:
“Respected Comrade Yakovlev!
“Thank you for finding time, although you are extremely busy, to answer my telegram concerning the absence of letters from my husband, Josif Samoilovich Zisels.
“You are doubtless aware that according to the doctor who works in your institution, my husband is suffering from a stomach illness. This was the reason he was exempted from work in the mine.
“I have learned that last month my husband spent 15 days in a punishment isolation cell, which led to a worsening of his stomach illness. Unfortunately, I do not know what regulations my husband had broken in order to earn this punishment but, in the circumstances, the important fact is that the punishment damaged his health.
“I imagine that he must have been put in the punishment cell without your knowledge, since you must undoubtedly be aware of the humane principle of Soviet law which states that a punishment must not in any way harm the health of the prisoner.
“I hope that next time you are forced to punish my husband you will find a way of doing so which will not harm his health.
“You are very busy, so please do not trouble to reply to my letter.“
*
During a search on 1 October 1979 an unposted letter addressed to Vyacheslav Bakhmin, describing the September events, and and a supervisory complaint Zisels had written for another prisoner, were both confiscated from him. He was again sentenced to 15 days in the cooler.
The official reason was: illegal correspondence, insulting the administration in statements to the UkSSR Procuracy — according to the Corrective-Labour Code, statements addressed to the Procurator are not subject to camp censorship — and helping other prisoners to write complaints.
As he was sending Zisels off to the cooler, the camp Head expressed disappointment that “There’s no Hitler to deal with him”; he threatened to set the criminal prisoners on him, to let Zisels rot in the mine, and to send him off to the Far North.
*
On 16 October, when Zisels had left the cooler, Chernei informed him that three foreign letters addressed to him had been confiscated. The reason was that they contained too much undesirable information.
Zisels’s health deteriorated and on 18 October he was admitted to the medical unit; he was discharged a week later.
On 30 October 1979, Political Prisoners’ Day, Zisels staged a one-day hunger-strike.
In an accompanying statement which he handed in to the administration, he protested against tyranny, threats and repression.
For this he was deprived of a ‘short’ visit scheduled for November. The official reason was stated thus; a hunger-strike is a violation of the regime: according to paragraph 1 of Article 23 of the ‘Rules on Internal Order’, eating takes place in the dining room in accordance with the daily timetable. Yakovlev gave Zisels a severe talking-to, during which he let slip some anti-Semitic expressions.
On 10 November 1979, Zisels, who had a cold, refused to go and peel potatoes, which earned him another 15 days in the cooler. On 12 November Zisels was taken to an MVD hospital in Lvov ‘for examination’. At the same time his wife received a letter from the Ukrainian Administration for Corrective-Labour Institutions, informing her that her husband had been transferred “to another camp for health reasons.”
***
After his trial, Lev Volokhonsky (CCE 53.11) remained in the ‘`Kresty’ [Crosses] Prison in Leningrad, doing odd jobs. On 22 October 1979 he was taken to the trial of his friend N. Nikitin (this issue, CCE 54.12).
On 23 October Volokhonsky registered his marriage to Natalya Lesnichenko. He was granted an hour-long visit from his wife and mother — they spoke through a glass partition. On 24 October Volokhonsky was transferred to the ordinary-regime camp known as ‘Yablonevka’ (195213, Leningrad, penal institution US-20/7). On 11 November he was taken back to ‘Kresty’ Prison. On 14 or 15 November he was taken off on a journey under guard.
*
VLADISLAV BEBKO
V. Bebko (trial CCE 53.12) was held in the Syzran Investigations Prison (penal institution IZ 42/2) until the middle of October.
On 20 August his mother, F. N. Bebko, complained to the Procuracy about the way in which her son was being bullied by his cell-mates (CCE 53.12). A. P. Martynov, Assistant Procurator of Syzran, replied on 11 September:
“… on his arrival from Investigations Prison-2, V. V. Bebko was put in cell No. 128, from which he was transferred to another cell because of his strange behaviour.
“A check-up has not revealed that your son was subjected to violent treatment by prisoners in the cells he occupied.
“The administration of Investigations Prison-2 recommended tighter checks on the conduct of other prisoners towards your son, who, due to certain mental deviations, behaves somewhat strangely and utters confused thoughts.“
In the ‘other cell’ the situation was no better: his cell-mates took Vladislav’s pillow and blanket, kept taking his clothes, sheets and most of the food he received in parcels; they also tried to rape him. F. N. Bebko described all this in a letter to the Kuibyshev Regional Procurator, dated 12 October.
On 20 August the RSFSR Supreme Court heard an appeal by lawyer Nelly Nimirinskaya (her name is spelt wrongly in CCE 53.12) and left the verdict in Bebko’s case unchanged. News of this did not reach Syzran until the middle of October.
On October V. Bebko arrived in a camp at the address: Kuibyshev Region, Stavropolsky district, Verkhnyaya Belozerka village, penal institution UR-65/12-2-20.
*
An article about V. Bebko, entitled `Under the False Mask of “Truth-seeker” ‘, appeared in the Kuibyshev Polytechnic Institute’s newspaper Young Engineer. On 14 November the article was reprinted in University Life, the newspaper of Kuibyshev University.
*
MIKHAIL KUKOBAKA
On 13 August Mikhail Kukobaka (trial CCE 53.13) arrived in a camp with the address: 211440, Vitebsk Region, Novopolotsk, penal institution UZh-15/10-D. The camp Head is Major Novik; the Deputy Head for Regime is Major Kosyak; Head of Operations is Major Goncharov.
On 24 August Kukobaka sent a ‘supervisory complaint’ to the USSR Supreme Soviet:
“My beliefs are directly opposed to Soviet communist ideology and cannot be changed through any ‘corrective labour’. I have already served seven years’ imprisonment on their account …
“I cannot and do not wish to live in conflict with my beliefs. But in the present situation, where the Soviet authorities consider my beliefs to be ‘knowingly false, slanderous fabrications’, 1 will always, wherever I am in the USSR, be a criminal according to Soviet law. For this reason, I request the Plenum of the USSR Supreme Court to act with humanity and common sense and, instead of imprisoning me in a corrective labour colony, to deprive me of my Soviet citizenship and deport me to any non-communist country.’
In case such a request proved impossible to carry out, Kukobaka asked to be transferred from his ‘criminal’ camp to a ‘political’ camp or to a prison.
When he arrived in camp, Kukobaka immediately announced that he would not take part in so-called ‘civic life’ or attend political education classes, and that on 30 October and 10 December he would stage hunger-strikes in protest against violations of human rights in the USSR.
At first Kukobaka was sent to the packaging shop. On 27 August he was transferred to the polishing shop. On 7 September he sent the following statement to the Vitebsk Regional Procuracy:
“I wish to inform you that in Institution UZh-15/10 the laws governing work safety and the treatment of prisoners are being grossly violated.
“At present, I work in the polishing shop (I was transferred here from the packaging shop on 27 August). We strip reinforced aluminium components and then polish them. The castings (the components after they have been cast) are treated using the dry method (i.e. without water, etc) on emery circles and emery strips, with an electric cable attached. In the confined space where we work there is no air-conditioning; we are not issued with breathing apparatus either. We work three eight-hour shifts per day (i.e. each person works 48 hours a week). We receive the usual food rations, so-called special diet’ consists of two mugs of ordinary milk per week, or less. The special clothing is torn and filthy and one set is shared between three (we pass it on at the end of each shift).
“There is practically nowhere to change or leave one’s underwear. After work we put our everyday clothes on to our filthy bodies and go to the living zone to wash. There is only one (cold-water) tap in the workshop.
“When I talked to the Head of Division Five about our working conditions, I was surprised by his answer: ‘We have long been considering giving the polishing shop work to the prisoners in the punishment cells. And we shall soon do so’. In this way I realized that the working conditions described above are not the result of negligence by the administration, but are deliberately intended to ruin prisoners’ health and are used as a form of punishment. My transfer there was no coincidence either. I was punished for refusing to reconsider my beliefs and because I refused to admit any guilt. Major Novik, Head of Institution UZh-15/10, put it simply and clearly: if a prisoner works an eight-hour shift every day for two years or more, inhaling emery and other sorts of dust, then a serious illness of the lungs is guaranteed. However, I wish to warn the Procuracy that if steps are not soon taken to improve working conditions, I will be forced to refuse to do this work, whatever the consequences may be.
“The medical facilities need special mention. The first-aid kits in the work zone and the living zone are not properly equipped; there is not even any iodine. Because the institution is divided into localized zones it is impossible to obtain prompt medical assistance.
“For example, at 4 pm on 18 August this year, prisoner Lipkin in the First Division grazed his nose on a ventilator blade. He was given first aid about 36 hours later. The medical service is superficial. For example, during my first medical examination after arriving in Institution UZh-15/10, the doctor was very interested in taking blood samples and it did not even occur to him to take my blood pressure.
“I have heard numerous complaints from prisoners about the heavy-handedness of the warden. (Furthermore, it is not only sergeants and ensigns who are guilty.)“
On 24 September Kukobaka sent a statement to the Procurator of Novopolotsk:
“I am informing you that, as from 24 September I refuse to work in the polishing shop …
“While I was working there I fell ill (a recurrence of chronic otitis in the right ear) and 3 September I went to the medical unit. However, I was refused help until 13 September.
“This was after I had complained to a member of a commission from from the MVD Regional Administration which was visiting the camp at the time. An ear, nose and throat specialist from the city hospital examined me and concluded that my work was unsuitable on account of my health. He wrote a recommendation that I be transferred to another job. On 17 September the administration split up our brigade. Almost half its members were sent to other jobs, but I was left where I was, despite the doctor’s recommendation.
“I applied to the Head of the Divisional Medical Unit, and, on 19 September, to Deputy Camp Head Major Kosyak, asking for a transfer, but without success. This sort of behaviour on the part of the administration can only be regarded as provocation. It does confirm my theory that I was not transferred to the polishing shop by chance, but with the deliberate aim of weakening my health. In the circumstances I am forced, without regard to the consequences, to refuse to work in this workshop. I see no other way out.“
From the day of his arrival, Kukobaka’s correspondence has been strictly monitored: his letters are looked through by Major Goncharov personally, as well as by the camp censor. Here is an extract from his complaint to the Vitebsk Regional Procurator, dated 11 September:
“In Institution UZh-15/10 I have in effect been deprived of my right of correspondence. The Head of Operations, Major Goncharov, forbids me to write about anything except the weather. He also forbids me to express any opinion in my letters unless that opinion coincides with his own, which it doesn’t always. Moreover, one cannot expect it to agree. I am not a criminal but a political prisoner, and I am here because I am being punished for my views …
“Letters addressed to the Procurator are unceremoniously opened. On 7 September the Division Head did this before my very eyes with my statement to the Regional Procurator concerning conditions of work and discipline…“
*
BAPTISTS
The Baptist Alexander Kalyashin has been serving a three-year sentence in an ordinary-regime camp since 11 August 1978, for refusing to take the military oath. (The camp address is: Ukraine, Sumy Region, Romensky district, Perekrestovka village.) His family was informed by Lieutenant Moskalenko of the Operations Department that their letters to Kalyashin would not be given to him, because the name of God was mentioned in them.
*
The Baptist Ivan Petrovich Shteffen was arrested in 1978 and sentenced to five years in a strict-regime camp on account of his religious activities (CCE 44.26-1). This is his third conviction.
He is serving his sentence in a camp with the address: Mangyshlak Region, Shevchenko, penal institution GM-172. In October 1978 he was offered a conditional release, with compulsory labour. He refused, since he did not consider himself guilty, and demanded unconditional release. Shteffen is suffering from extreme exhaustion and the climatic conditions are having a severely adverse effect on his health.
*
4. In Defence of Political Prisoners
ABOUT KUKOBAKA (1-3)
*
[1]
V. Nekipelov: “When Repression is Pointless …”
An Open Letter in defence of Mikhail Kukobaka (14 September 1979)
The letter is addressed to US Senator Dole, who has decided to take a continuing personal interest in the case of M. Kukobaka.
‘The CUE (coefficient of useful effect) of this oppression equals nought. Every punishment has the aim of reforming the person being punished, to change his habits, inclinations and way of behaviour. To punish someone who affirms ‘This is what I believe’ is to deprive him of his freedom because of his convictions; it is absurd — deliberate torture and slow murder …’
*
[2]
V. Nekipelov: ‘“Inclined to Escape and Suicide …”
Secret judgments on Soviet political prisoners (27 September 1979)
“The cautionary stamp on the case file of M. Kukobaka means a deliberate increase in his persecution …
“The stamp on M. Kukobaka’s card evidently indicates an even greater degree of isolation and surveillance.
“In sending this information to Amnesty International, I am calling for public protest against the system of secret symbols denoting special discrimination in the Soviet penal system and request that all such incidents be publicized.
“I demand that the false, discriminatory ‘judgment’ inscribed on Mikhail Kukobaka’s prison file by the KGB be removed immediately.“
*
[3]
27 signatures
‘Without Right of Correspondence’
An appeal on behalf of Mikhail Kukobaka (November 1979)
“The demonstrative violation of M. Kukobaka’s right to correspondence by the camp administration is frightening …
“Furthermore, Article 36 of the Corrective-Labour Code, concerning the right of prisoners to write to the Procuracy, is being grossly violated. Kukobaka is not being allowed to send statements to the Procuracy in sealed envelopes …
“Stalin’s special camps ‘without right of correspondence’ were formally condemned during the years following the Twentieth [Party] Congress [1956]. It looks as though they have now returned for Mikhail Kukobaka.“
*
5. Releases
V. GRIGORYEV
On 24 June 1978 Vladimir Grigoryev (CCE 49.18 [3]) was released at the end of his sentence.
Until his arrest, CPSU member Grigoryev (b. 1936) was in charge of the letters department of the Bely Yar district newspaper (Tomsk Region, central Siberia). He was arrested on 24 December 1976. Evidently, the charges against him were based on the manuscript of his book Fascism in a Workers Smock, which was confiscated at the time of his arrest.
In December 1977 the Tomsk Regional Court sentenced Grigoryev to 18 months’ imprisonment under Article 190-1, RSFSR Criminal Code. He served the remaining six months of his sentence in Corrective-Labour Colony No. 2 (Asino town, Tomsk Region).
*
9 OTHERS
Lithuanian partisan Bronius Purlis was released from Perm Camp 35 on completion of his 25-year sentence, on 7 March 1979.
*
Alexei Savchin from the Ukraine was released from Perm Camp 35 on completion of a 25-year term. He now lives at 293623, Lvov Region, Skolevsky district, Golovetskoye village.
*
On 15 September Svyatoslav Karavansky was released in Tarusa, to which he was brought from Mordovian Camp 1. He has been imprisoned (with a break, see CCE 35.9) for about 31 years. Karavansky’s wife Nina Strokata lives, under surveillance, in Tarusa (CCE 54.16).
*
Anatoly Zdorovy, brought from Perm Camp 36, was released in Kharkov at the end of his seven-year sentence. On 22 June he was placed under administrative surveillance. He was given a week to go and visit his parents (they live in Kharkov Region). This year A. Zdorovy’s son started studying at an institute — the first to greet him there were KGB officials.
*
in July, Yury Vladimirovich VASILYEV was given a conditional release, with compulsory labour, from Perm Camp 37, after serving ten years and two months of his 11-year sentence for “Betrayal of the Motherland” (Article 64). Vasilyev’s sentence also included three years’ exile, but this has been cancelled. His wife is a former librarian in the camp. Their address is : 617407, Perm Region, Kungursky district, Komsomolsky town, 28 Sportivnaya Street, flat 15.
The camp sentence of his sister and co-defendant (attempt to hijack an aircraft, CCE 16.5) Galina Selivonchik ends in 1982; she then has to serve five years in exile.
*
On 6 September Vitaly Adamovich from Kiev was released, having served a three-year sentence under Article 187-1 (UkSSR Criminal Code = Article 190-1, RSFSR Code).
*
In 1979 Lithuanian “Twenty-Fiver” Julius Dubauskas was released from Perm Camp 36.
*
On 28 February Pyotr Naritsa (CCE 42.3, CCE 44.26-1) was released at the end of his two-and-a-half-year sentence. In an Open Letter dated 4 November he describes his ordeals after release.
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NOTES
- On Barladeanu, see trial, CCE 46.3 1977 trial; in the camps, CCE 47.14 1977 Golumbievskaya link, and (CCE 47.9-4) wife writes to Ukrainian Helsinki Group; CCE 48.10 1978 sent to hospital; CCE 51.9-2 1978 in camp with Vins and others, and Name Index.
↩︎ - On Buzinnikov, see CCE 51.3 1978 trial; CCE 52.5-2 in transit to camp; CCE 53.30 1979 Nekipelov defense of Buzinnikov; and CCE 53.19-2 harsh treatment in camps, and Name Index.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 