Miscellaneous Reports, August 1980 (57.23)

<<No 57 : 3 August 1980>>

NINE ITEMS

[1]

On 17 May 1980, Eduard Kuleshov (CCE 56.25 [1]) was sentenced to two years in strict-regime camps. His sentence is due to end 6 December 1980.

In May A. Osipov (CCE 55.1-3, CCE 56.25 [2]), who lives in Leningrad, was sent for two years’ compulsory treatment in a work and therapy clinic.

[2]

On Saturday 5 July policemen and plain-clothes officers seized Mikhail Zotov [¹], a resident of Tolyatti. He was driven to a psychiatric hospital. The doctor on duty refused to admit him as a patient because he had a blood pressure of 240/140, He was then taken to an ordinary hospital.

The next Monday the chief doctor of a Tolyatti psychiatric clinic, A. A. Kurbatov, visited Zotov and told him that if he tried to leave the hospital he would be placed in the ‘madhouse’. Zotov requested the administration of the factory where he works to reassure ‘the organs’ that he would not leave Tolyatti during the Olympic Games. He was visited in hospital by representatives of the management committee, who told him they were unable to help him.

On 22 July Zotov declared a hunger-strike, which would end ‘only with my release or my death’ (to quote his statement to the doctors). On 26 July he was released from the hospital. He was immediately summoned to the psychiatric clinic, where they told him that if he tried to leave Tolyatti he would be placed in a psychiatric hospital.

[3]

In July 1962 Yury Kashkov (b. 1938), a resident of Kovrov, was arrested under Article 70 (RSFSR Criminal Code). He was charged with producing leaflets and relaying Western radio broadcasts over the Kovrov radio network. The investigation was conducted by Major Yevseyev (CCE 54.23-1 [13]). At his trial in September 1962 Kashkov was sent to a Special Psychiatric Hospital. He was released from the Leningrad SPH on 31 December 1963,

At the beginning of November 1979 Kashkov was arrested and placed for one month in a detention centre in Vladimir for his identity to be ascertained (he had refused to give his name). A search was conducted at his home and several documents of the Moscow Helsinki Group were discovered. He was sent to the psychiatric hospital in Vladimir, but escaped from the hospital reception wearing hospital clothes.

In June 1980 Kashkov was detained at the trial of Victor Nekipelov (CCE 57.2 [3]). He was again sent to a psychiatric hospital, and again he escaped.

[4]

On 7 July the chief doctor of Moscow Psychiatric Clinic No. 15 telephoned Valery Senderov (CCE 56.25 [5]) and asked him to come to the clinic. Senderov refused.

On 8 July he received military call-up papers (he had been granted exemption from military service). On 9 July he was visited at his home for some reason by the police. His mother refused to let them in.

[5]

At the end of December 1979 E. V. Maziliauskas returned to Arkhangelsk after a journey to Moscow to lodge complaints with the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) against her local authorities. She also took her complaints to Tatyana Osipova.

When she returned she was summoned to a psychiatric clinic (she had been on the psychiatric register since 1959), where she was ‘worked over‘ for several hours. She was told that if she did not withdraw her complaints she would be hospitalized. Several days later Maziliauskas was summoned to the police station, where she was presented with a record of an act of ‘petty hooliganism’ committed by her before her trip to Moscow. The record stated that she had insulted a policeman who had rebuked her. On 20 December she was fined 20 roubles. This decision was challenged in January by the Chairman of the Regional Court, Yashkin.

Police Chief Reshetov told Maziliauskas: “Never mind. This time we failed, but next time we’ll get you.” He led her to believe that this meant she would be punished for her complaints.

[6]

On 16 April a search was conducted at the home of Leningrad poet Lev Druskin (CCE 56.14). On 20 April Druskin sent a telegram to Israel requesting an invitation to emigrate.

The following day (there was an inaccuracy here in CCE 56.14) Druskin, who is a Group I invalid (his legs are paralysed), was visited at his home by two KGB officers, one of whom was Captain P. K. Koshelev. They requested Druskin and his wife to give written ‘explanations’ of where they had obtained the tamizdat literature which had been confiscated in the search. They wrote: ‘It was left behind by people who have now left the country’.

On 27 June Druskin was visited by the same officers at his country cottage. They ‘cautioned him according to the Decree’ for possessing ‘harmful’ literature, and said that a book of his poetry which was about to be published would not now appear.

On 10 July, “for actions violating the Statutes of the Union of Soviet Writers, including the circulation of anti-Soviet literature received from abroad, for hypocrisy and slander of the Soviet State and of Soviet writers” (evidently a reference to remarks written in a diary confiscated during the search), Druskin was expelled from the Writers’ Union.

Several days later Druskin was told by his doctor that on orders from Chief Doctor G. Ya. Likhacheva he would no longer be allowed to receive treatment in the polyclinic of the Literary Fund [of the Writers’ Union]. His wife, who is a Group 2 invalid, was denied treatment at the Literary Fund’s polyclinic in April, shortly after the search at their home.

On 28 July the Director of the Leningrad Section of the Literary Fund telephoned Druskin at his country cottage to tell him that he had been expelled from the Fund, and said that he had to leave the cottage within three days (“otherwise we’ll have the police evict you”). Druskin then telephoned Koshelev. Two days later he was visited by the Director, who apologized to them and said that nobody was going to evict them. In July Druskin and his wife received an invitation from abroad.

[7]

On 20 May a stranger delivered a letter to Sergei Khodorovich, an administrator of the Political Prisoners’ Relief Fund, which read:

Sergei,

We know you can help us. We’re in a desperate situation. If you’d done a term you’d know what I mean. Don’t bother wondering who gave me the idea of coming to you. I only need five thousand. I know you won’t tell the cops, as you’re in trouble yourself and I’ve nothing to lose. Once I sort things out, I’ll give it back. Give the money to one of your boys within the next three days. On 23 May a man will come to the kiosk and ask if Sergei gave him the parcel for Stepan. No threats, but if I don’t get the money, you’ll get a bullet in the side.

Khodorovich told the police about the letter. Nobody came to the kiosk on the day stated in the letter.

Former members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists Vladimir Zatvorsky and Lina Soroka, who live in Inta (Komi ASSR), have had their memoirs stolen.

[8]

Yury Gastev [²] was saying farewell to V. Aksyonov (CCE 57.18-2) at Sheremetyevo Airport, when he was approached by B. B. Karatayev.

Karatayev told Gastev that he should stay out of Moscow during the Olympic Games and that in his own interests he should sever all contacts with foreigners and consider leaving the country after the Olympic Games.

[9]

Shortly before the Olympic Games the inhabitants of Dorokhovo Settlement (near Moscow on the railway line to Belorussia) received roofing slates from the village soviet to repair their roofs. The slates were given only to those whose homes were near the motorway which would be used by visitors to the Olympic Games. They were given only enough slates for the side of the roof facing the road.

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