- 20-1. GENERAL. Jews (7-18)
- 20.2. Germans (19-24), Pentecostals (25-34): Boris Yevdokimov’s death. Those Who Have Left (35-37)
*
GERMANS (19-24)
[19]
Artur Marsal and his wife Nina live in Dushanbe [1] (capital of Tajik SSR). They have been trying to obtain permission to emigrate to West Germany for three years.
On 7 April 1979, they sent a statement to USSR Minister of Internal Affairs Shcholokov, complaining about the Visa & Registration Department (OVIR) of the Tajikistan MVD. The number of permits to leave the USSR issued to persons of German nationality, they commented, at any rate in the past 2 ½ years, make up no more than 1 % of the total applications submitted …
*
[19]
In August 1979, G. G. Tilman (CCE 51.16) received his latest refusal in his prolonged attempts to obtain an exit visa for himself, his wife and four children.
His mother and brother live in West Germany. Tilman’s request was refused on the grounds that his family were no longer together, since his fifth child was currently serving in the Army.
*
[20]
In early September 1979, Genrikh D. Reimer was refused permission to leave by OVIR (Kazakh SSR MVD), see CCE 44.24.
*
[21]
G. G. Shpenst (Frunze, Kyrgyz SSR) has been refused permission to emigrate to West Germany.
Since he divided his family, Shpenst was told, by letting his son leave with his wife after an invitation from her mother he could not now claim that he wished to be reunited with them.
*
The Trials of Noi and Repp
[22]
In June 1979, eighteen Germans from the Kirghiz SSR staged a demonstration on Red Square in Moscow. The demonstrators held banners stating: “We request a free exit to join our relatives in West Germany!”
Almost immediately they were dispersed and taken to different police stations, where they were each given jail sentences ranging from 10 to 15 days.
One of them was Nikolai Repp.
*
On returning to Kirghizia from Moscow on 12 July, Repp, together with other refuseniks, tried to make an appointment with the Kirghiz Republic OVIR. From OVIR they went to the Central Committee of the Kirghiz Communist Party.
There they were told that someone would come to talk with them. Instead, a police patrol arrived which forced all 26 of them into a bus and took them to the Pervomaisky district internal affairs office (OVD).
There Yakov Noi was arrested and charged with malicious hooliganism; three women were sentenced to 10 days in jail, and one woman to 15 days. The women staged a 10-day hunger-strike in protest, and were not given beds throughout their 10-day sentence.
Two days later Repp came into town on business. He was detained in the street by a police patrol and arrested on a charge of malicious hooliganism, alleged to have occurred on 12 July. It was not until several days later that Erna Repp learnt of her husband’s arrest.
*
[23]
THE TRIAL OF NOI
The trial of Yakov Noi took place on 2 August.
He was accused of running about, shouting and swearing in front of the Central Committee building, and kicking a policeman in the stomach. Noi pleaded guilty.
When asked by the judge whether his disorderly behaviour would continue, and whether he would persist in trying to obtain an appointment with the Central Committee, Noi replied: he would not go to the Central Committee again, but he would not stop petitioning for permission to emigrate. Noi was given a suspended sentence and released from the courtroom.
*
[24]
THE TRIAL OF REPP
Nikolai Repp was tried on 7 August. Before the trial he changed defence lawyers twice.
He was charged with hindering the work of a government establishment on 12 July by swearing loudly and without restraint in the square outside. When approached by the police he not only continued his hooligan behaviour, but increased it. It was then proposed that he get into the police bus and accompany them to the police station.
He refused to comply with this request willingly and, on being put into the bus, he struck a police-officer, Ismailov, with his fist. A medical examination of Ismailov revealed two yellow bruises and abrasions on his chest.
*
At the very beginning of the trial the defence lawyer presented the court with a statement from 13 Germans referring to Repp’s innocence, and demanding permission to give evidence as witnesses.
Judge Chernoknizhnaya declared that this statement could not be considered an official document, but witnesses could be chosen from the list of signatories. Four were immediately chosen from those present in the hall.
(None of the Germans, not even Erna Repp, had been allowed into the courtroom. However, several people had managed to force their way in. The rest remained outside the doorway, but they were soon pushed out into the street. The courtroom was completely full, mainly of policemen.)
Several policemen were called as witnesses. Ismailov and two others corroborated the charge in full. The other policemen gave less precise evidence, and one of them even said that Repp had not behaved like a hooligan.
*
WITNESSES
The Germans called as witnesses testified that Repp had not behaved in a disorderly fashion, and that he could not possibly have struck Ismailov, since the latter was sitting in the bus all the time.
They also said that they were forced to try to obtain an appointment at the Central Committee by the constant hardship which they were undergoing because of their attempts to obtain exit visas. They were frequently interrupted and prevented from speaking, especially on matters connected with emigration.
The court considered that the sole purpose of the evidence given by these witnesses was to protect Repp. The accused pleaded not guilty.
The sentence was two years in ordinary-regime camps.
*
A tattered typewritten copy of the judgment was delivered to Erna Repp three weeks after the trial.
The names of the assessors and the part of the sentence concerning the evidence given by witnesses proved to have been typed on to the original text later, with a different typewriter.
Shortly before Repp’s departure for the camp, one of his cell-mates told another that he had seen this other cell-mate drop some tablets into Repp’s tea and then persuade him to drink it.
*
CAMP
In the camp near Frunze [Bishkek] where Nikolai Repp was sent to serve his sentence, he had two meetings with his wife Erna: a short one of one hour, and a long one of twenty (!) hours.
The length of these meetings was explained by the authorities as being due to the lack of rooms; according to the Commentary on the Criminal Code, short visits must last at least two hours, and long visits at least twenty-four hours. (The camp has 17 meeting rooms for a total of 3,500 prisoners.)
This camp also possesses the following ‘official’ rule: all relatives arriving independently (i.e. not on a summons from the KGB’s ‘special section’) are granted a long meeting of a maximum of twenty-four hours.
*
‘STRANGE ILLNESS’
During one of the meetings, Nikolai told his wife Erna that he had contracted a strange illness during the investigation.
From about the second week of the investigation Repp had begun to feel lethargic; later he had developed headaches, he felt shivery all over and broke into sweats. These attacks began after lunch and continued until supper.
At these times he was called for questioning and was persuaded on a number of occasions to sign papers. (Throughout the entire investigation Repp had signed nothing.) Once or twice the warder entering his cell to call him for questioning had been accompanied by an Assistant Republican Procurator, who had been taking part in the questioning. He looked closely at Repp and his bed, then left the cell without speaking.
During his most recent attack, Repp had suffered from a particularly bad headache, and had even screamed from the pain. He demanded to see a doctor. Instead of taking him to a doctor, the warder locked him in a small, dark, stuffy cell.
There Repp felt really ill. He screamed again, and only then did the warder take him to the doctor. The doctor gave him an injection of some drug and four sleeping tablets. But even so Repp continued to suffer from insomnia for two days.
After this the illness disappeared, and a few days later he was taken to court for trial.
*
*
PENTECOSTALS (25-34)
[25]
GORETOI
The Preparatory Committee for the 12th World Pentecostal Conference in Vancouver (Canada), sent minister Nikolai Petrovich GORETOI [2] an invitation to take part in the Conference.
On 5 June Goretoi filed an official request with all the documents necessary for his journey to attend the conference. On 4 July, in the passport office at Temryuk, the reply from the head of the Krasnodar OVIR, Lieutenant-Colonel M. Ya. Mikhailov, was read to Goretoi:
“We wish to inform Nikolai Petrovich Goretoi that there is no possibility of his request being granted, since there are no grounds for it.“
After this refusal Goretoi sent a letter to the Conference. Thanking them for the invitation, Goretoi explained to the delegates why he could not come to Vancouver.
*
He briefly described the history of relations between Pentecostals and the Soviet authorities since the period immediately after the Revolution. He dwelt on the history of persecution which he and his fellow-believers had suffered since deciding to apply for emigration. Goretoi warned Christians from Western countries about the distorted picture of the situation which would be given by the Soviet delegates to the Conference, representatives of the Council on Religious Affairs.
He proposed instead that they rely on the testimony of Baptist Georgy Vins and other believers whose views were not based on official sources.
*
[26]
BILYK
Vasily S. Bilyk (CCE 48.16-2), minister of the Sukhodolsk congregation (Voroshilovgrad Region, UkSSR), is a Group II invalid.
Fourteen years previously, while working in a mine, he suffered a leg injury. Since then he attends an annual medical commission to have his invalidity certified. For the past two years, after applying for an exit visa, Bilyk has been required, instead, to attend a psychiatric examination.
*
PSYCHIATRIC ‘CARE’
In summer 1976 he was forcibly interned in a psychiatric hospital in Krasnodon, where he was detained for 26 days.
Bilyk was placed in a ward with patients who were seriously ill and was forced to drink some medicines. Several times he was given intravenous injections, which induced a state of shock. The crowded ward lacked ventilation and was locked, and the patients were stifled by the bad smell. They were not allowed out for walks.
For 26 days he went without a change of underwear. After complaining to Volgina, the hospital’s head doctor, Bilyk was told that the doctors were acting on orders.
*
In April and May 1979 Bilyk was again placed in the same hospital for examination. Volgina explained that the reason was the lack of room in the casualty department.
*
[27]
Pyotr Namonyuk, resident of Roznichi village in Manevichi district (Volynskaya Region, UkSSR), is one of those who renounced their Soviet citizenship when requesting permission to leave the Soviet Union. (On 27 March he sent a statement to this effect to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.)
In spring this year Namonyuk did not work voluntarily at one subbotnik and also refused to work on Easter Sunday, after first writing to the head doctor at the hospital where he works about his intentions.
On 21 May 1979 the hospital trade union committee dismissed him from work for absenteeism, even though he is the only wage-earner in his family. He has a sick mother, a father who is an invalid, and a sixteen-year-old brother. He was receiving wages of 70 roubles a month.
*
[28]
On 15 July Victor Vasilyev (CCE 53.25-2), a resident of Vilnius (Lithuanian SSR), went to the American Consulate in Leningrad. As soon as he left the building he was detained by the police. Vasilyev was sentenced to fifteen days on a charge of ‘abusive language’.
Soon after Vasilyev’s release he was again detained. A policeman and two plainclothes officers asked him to produce his papers. They took his passport [ID document], court order, and a certificate about his 15-day prison sentence.
Vasilyev was then taken to a police station, where he was informed by the policeman that on their way to the station he had lost Vasilyev’s documents. Vasilyev asked him to go and help him look for them. Once in the street, the policeman disappeared. Vasilyev wrote to the CPSU Central Committee and the Lithuanian MVD about this incident.
On 12 September the Catholic Committee appealed to the Deputy Secretary of the Central Committee of the Lithuanian Communist Party, N. K. Dybenko, to allow Vasilyev’s family to emigrate.
*
NARVA (29-30)
[29]
In July 1977 Pentecostals of the Narva congregation (Estonian SSR) sent a statement to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR about their wish to emigrate to the USA.
*
In September 1977 all those who had submitted the declaration were allowed to complete application forms in the OVIR office. The application process stopped there.
The believers were told that their religious reasons did not constitute grounds for emigration. They were required to obtain an invitation from the US government and its agreement to grant them permanent resident status.
On 30 December 1977, the US Embassy sent the necessary guarantees from its government to Narva [3]. These letters have still not reached their addressees. The Pentecostalists believe that they are being withheld by the Estonian KGB.
Eight of the families have again sent statements to the Supreme Soviet. These have all met with oral refusals. At the same time the Estonian authorities are doing their utmost to dissuade the Pentecostals from emigrating.
*
[30]
MATVEYUK FAMILY
Together with the other Pentecostals, S. A. Matveyuk, the minister of the Narva congregation, is trying to obtain an invitation for himself and his family.
In spring 1979, Matveyuk’s son Victor was called to the Military Recruitment Commission. He requested deferment of his military service until the question of his emigration had been settled. Krutilov, deputy chairman of the city’s soviet executive committee and a member of the Commission, said that the Commission had decided to grant Matveyuk a deferment until autumn 1979.
On 10 May 1979, Victor was taken to the police. Sokolov, head of the town Military Recruitment Office, tried to issue Victor with his call-up papers in the presence of a KGB officer, Dmitriev. Matveyuk refused to accept the papers, and referred to the deferment he had been granted.
Dmitriev then summoned S. A. Matveyuk to discuss the matter and proposed that he register the Pentecostal community and refuse the invitation to emigrate. In return he promised that Victor would not be brought to trial and would be exempted from military service.
Matveyuk refused.
*
On 8 June the case of Victor Matveyuk was transferred to the Procuracy. During the investigation, attempts were made to persuade the Matveyuks to cooperate with the KGB.
The trial took place on 20 August. It was asserted at the trial that the father had persuaded Victor to refuse military service and to emigrate. Witnesses Krutilov and Sokolov categorically denied that Victor had been granted a deferment of his military service. The court sentenced V. Matveyuk to two years in ordinary-regime camps.
Victor is serving his sentence at the following address: Estonian SSR, Tallinn, Tisleri Street, penal institution YuM-422/5.
The KGB is making every effort to win over the Matveyuks, Dmitriev visited Victor in camp, and threatened him with another sentence if he did not cooperate with the authorities. He also threatened him with forcible psychiatric treatment.
S. A. Matveyuk was threatened that the same fate awaited his other son Yevgeny.
*
KRASNODAR & STAVROPOL (31-33)
[31]
Timofei and Natalya Shishikin who live with their children in Maikop (Stavropol Region [krai]), have a floor space of 25 square metres.
The town authorities refuse to improve their living conditions on the grounds that there is no sense in giving flats to Pentecostals who have decided to emigrate, since they will only leave them.
*
On 25 May Natalya Shishikina was summoned by Pshegonov, secretary of the city soviet executive committee [4]. Pshegonov and the KGB officers present offered her a deal: renounce her intention to emigrate, if only orally — and she would be given a flat immediately.
Shishikina did not accept their offer. Meanwhile, the Shishikin family have still not received exit visas. They have sent several written appeals to Brezhnev, but not obtained any decision on their case.
*
[32]
Fyodor Sidenko (CCE 44.24, CCE 47.8-2), a resident of the Starotitarovskaya cantonment (Krasnodar Region), was arrested on 16 October 1979. He has been charged under Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code).
Sidenko has already served a sentence for his religious beliefs, and has been trying to obtain permission to leave the USSR for 15 years.
*
[33]
Children of Pentecostals who have declared their wish to leave the Soviet Union have recently, on reaching the age of 16, been refusing to accept passports [ID documents] and become Soviet citizens.
The local authorities refuse to grant them the status of stateless persons, and as a result these young people have not been able to find work. One person in this situation is Vladimir Pishchenko from Starotitarovskaya cantonment.
Other Pentecostals have requested their registration office to issue birth certificates for their children without any reference to Soviet citizenship, since the parents themselves have renounced Soviet citizenship.
Elizaveta and Stanislav Babichenko in particular have been trying to achieve this.
*
The Death of Boris Yevdokimov
[34]
As a result of a serious cancer illness, Boris Yevdokimov was released from psychiatric hospital (CCE 53.21) on 24 April 1979.
He began making attempts to obtain an exit visa to go abroad for treatment, since he had received invitations from individuals and clinics in many European countries. However, Leningrad OVIR refused to accept Yevdokimov’s application documents, and requested a medical report from the USSR Ministry of Health.
In reply to a statement sent by his son Rostislav to the Ministry of Health, M. I. Glebova, Chief Specialist, wrote:
“… Modern methods of treating oncological illnesses used in the Soviet Union are no different from those used abroad.
“In view of this we do not see the value of sending the patient abroad for treatment. Should it prove necessary, you may take your father for consultation to the N. N. Petrov Oncology Research Institute of the USSR Ministry of Health …
“This letter constitutes an authorization for consultation.“
In reply, Rostislav Yevdokimov wrote:
“... Thank you, but we no longer need consultations. All consultations were conducted long ago, and now only special emergency treatment will have any effect.
“In view of the above, it is becoming clear that before the eyes of the whole world my father is being made the victim of a routine medical murder …“
In August Leningrad OVIR accepted Boris Yevdokimov’s documents.
On 4 October, still awaiting an exit visa, he died.
*
Those Who Have Left (35-37)
[35]
In September Vladlen Pavlenkov [5], a former political prisoner, left the USSR with his wife Svetlana Pavlenkova [6] and their son Victor (CCE 51.8, CCE 53.6). They received exit visas one week after applying for them.
*
[36]
On 14 September Anna Kotelnikova (CCE 53.25-1), the adopted daughter of N. A. Budulak-Sharygin [Scharegin], left for England.
The official obstacle to her departure — the fact that the father of her 10-year-old daughter had not given his permission — suddenly disappeared. They were given permission to leave one week before the time limit set for her departure.
*
[37]
Yury Belov (CCE 48.12, CCE 53.21), who spent many years in psychiatric hospitals, left the USSR in early November.
Tamara Los (CCE 53.25-1) has emigrated from the USSR.
See CCE 54.23-1 for information on the departure of B. Tsitlyonok.
=============================================
NOTES
- Dushanbe (pop. 592,200; 1989).
↩︎ - On Pentecostal minister Nikolai Goretoi, see CCE 47.8-2, CCE 48.17-2, CCE 49.15 and Name Index.
↩︎ - City of Narva (pop. 73,500; 1980).
↩︎ - City of Maikop (pop. 127,828; 1979).
↩︎ - On Vladlen Pavlenkov, see CCE 10.6, CCE 42.4-4, CCE 47.10 and Name Index.
↩︎ - On Svetlana Pavlenkova, see CCE 42.4-4, CCE 47.14 and CCE 48.2.
↩︎
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A Chronicle of Current Events 