The Right to Leave, August 1980 (57.18-1)

<<No 57 : 3 August 1980>>

18-1. General. Jews (1-11)
18-2. Germans, Pentecostalists and Those Who Have Left (12-21)

[1]

Officials of the Moscow City Department of Visas & Registration (OVIR) told Yury Yarym-Agayev (CCE 57.18-2) that the average waiting time for a reply to a request for permission to emigrate is one-and-a-half years.

[2]

YEVSYUKOV

MOSCOW REGION. In 1978 Serafim Dmitriyevich YEVSYUKOV (b. 1933) began to petition for permission to emigrate.

Yevsyukov received no reply to his applications. With one of his statements to Brezhnev he enclosed all the documents which have to be submitted to OVIR except for an invitation from abroad. The documents were sent to the Moscow Region OVIR but were not examined because an invitation was missing.

S. D. Yevsyukov was dismissed from his job: in January 1978, after 25 years’ work as a navigator in civil aviation, he had retired, although he had continued to work as an engineer.

His daughter Ludmila (b. 1961) was charged with “Betrayal of the Motherland and amoral behaviour” by the Komsomol College Committee and expelled from her college.

In 1980 Yevsyukov’s son Serafim (b. 1962) was called up to join the Army.

S. S. Yevsyukov replied with a request to be excused from military service; not receiving any answer, he sent a telegram to Brezhnev. On 23 May he was arrested for “evasion of call-up for active military service” (Article 80, RSFSR Criminal Code); on 27 July Domodedovo town people’s court sentenced him to 2 ½ years of ordinary-regime imprisonment.

S. D. Yevsyukov has appealed to Captain Holden and Captain Gerard, with whom he flew in 1956 and 1959, and also to the ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization?], to airline companies, to trades unions of workers in aviation, and to private individuals, asking them to send him “an invitation for permanent settlement in a Western country”.

[3]

LEONID PAVLOV

In 1966 Leonid Pavlov (b. 1936), who was about to become a member of the Communist Party, suddenly refused to join.

By 1976 Pavlov had defended his doctoral thesis, had over 70 printed works and certificates of authorship and had submitted his higher doctoral thesis. In December 1976, in a letter to Brezhnev, Pavlov requested release from Soviet citizenship and permission to emigrate to a capitalist country. On 30 August 1977 Pavlov was arrested.

On 6 April 1978 the October district people’s court in Leningrad sentenced him under two Articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code (195, pt. 1, “theft… of official stationery” and 196, pt. 1, ” … preparation … of counterfeit documents”) to two years’ deprivation of freedom.

From February to May 1977 Pavlov, using deceptive letters which he wrote on stationery filched by him from places where he had formerly worked, gained access to special closed sections of the USSR Academy of Sciences Library and read sociological literature, The New York Times and Time magazine. Using credentials prepared in the same way, Pavlov took away three notebooks of extracts from the literature he had read.

The court added an extra three years to its sentence, so that Pavlov would finish serving a sentence he had received on 7 February 1969. Pavlov was then sentenced under Article 211, pt. 2 (RSFSR Criminal Code) to eight years of ordinary-regime imprisonment for a motor-vehicle offence; in 1973 he was released on parole. Pavlov was therefore sentenced to a total of five years in strict-regime camps.

In September 1979 Pavlov was given a conditional release “with the obligation of working under official direction”. He started to fulfil his ‘obligation’ in Mtsensk, but was transferred to Sterlitamak as punishment for visiting Moscow without permission in March 1980.

On 25 October 1979 Pavlov sent a statement to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, again requesting to be released from Soviet citizenship and allowed to leave the USSR.

[4]

FEODOSIA (Crimea). In January Vladimir Vyrkin (b. 1940) applied for permission to emigrate. In mid-July he was arrested on a charge of ‘parasitism’.

[4]

UZHGOROD (West Ukraine). On 17 April Galina Maximova (b. 1932), the mother of Alexander Maximov, arrested on 25 February (CCE 56.20), sent her passport and a statement renouncing her citizenship to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet.

She demands to be informed of her son’s whereabouts.

JEWS (5-11)

[5]

LEONID DIKY

MOSCOW. In summer 1979 Leonid Diky, D.Sc. (Physical and Mathematical Sciences) and assistant professor at Moscow University’s Mechanics & Mathematics Faculty, applied for permission to emigrate to Israel.

He was immediately forbidden to hold more than one job and at the beginning of the new academic year he was not given any teaching. The department arranged with him that although he would formally remain an assistant professor he would be working only according to an individual plan of scientific work.

In May 1980 Diky was dismissed; the order said that because of his desire to leave the Motherland he had done no teaching for a year and was merely sitting around the department. Diky applied to a court to be reinstated. By 3 August his statement had not been examined, although according to Article 99 of the RSFSR Code of Civil Procedure it should have been examined within ten days.

[6]

LENINGRAD. Yury Kolker, D.Sc. (Physical and Mathematical Sciences), has for four months been unsuccessfully trying to submit his documents for emigration. He works in a stoke-hole. On 19 April KGB officials had a talk with him and threatened him with prosecution under Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code for his poetry, which has been circulating in samizdat.

[7]

RIGA. Only in October 1979, after Khaim Kilov and his wife Sh. Elman had submitted numerous appeals to central agencies, did OVIR accept their applications for emigration without a prior move to a one-roomed flat (CCE 52.12 [1]).

In April 1980 their application was refused on the grounds that their relatives in the USSR were closer to them than those abroad. In a statement to A. P. Shitikov, Chairman of the Soviet Committee for European Security & Cooperation, Kilov and Elman point out that “such grounds for refusal contravene the provisions of the Final Act” of the Helsinki Agreement, and express the hope that they will be able “in the near future… to exercise their inalienable right to emigrate from the USSR”.

KIEV. (8-11)

[8]

Saturday meetings of refuseniks outside OVIR are ‘monitored’ by KGB officials Novikov and Odintsov.

Sometimes the meetings are broken up. On Thursdays ‘silent demonstrations’ are held outside the Ukrainian MVD. On 10 April, when over 150 people were attending the demonstration, Lt-Col Vasilyev ran out of the MVD building and started to shout that the demonstrators were paralysing the work of the Ministry and that if they did not leave within six minutes he would summon a police squad.

After about 20 minutes the demonstrators moved to the Ukrainian Communist Party Central Committee building. There they were given an appointment for Monday 14 April. On Saturday 12 April the refuseniks discovered that there was a possibility of some kind of trap being set for them on 14 April. They therefore sent a telegram to the Central Committee to say they would not attend on the Monday.

On the morning of 14 April the street in front of the Central Committee building was cordoned off with cars, policemen and KGB officials.

Kiev refuseniks’ first joint complaint was handed to the CPSU Central Committee and to the USSR MVD on 7 February 1980. 97 people had signed it.

On 18 February a group of Kiev women refuseniks handed in a statement with 102 signatures to the same organizations. On 18 March a new delegation of Kiev refuseniks (about 40 people) arrived in Moscow from Kiev. On 19 March the Head of the USSR MVD OVIR, K. I. Zotov (CCE 56.20,) received a group of five of them; they handed Zotov an appeal (117 signatures); he promised to examine the cases of the Kiev refuseniks and to ‘sort it out’.

On 23 April representatives of the Kiev refuseniks I. Gonchar, M. Mikhlin, I. Shelkova and N. Yankelevich went to the USSR KGB. The head of one of the departments, Yu. A. Kazamanov, received them.

They asked Kazamanov not to try to stop the Kiev refuseniks appealing against the actions of official persons. At the end of their talk Kazamanov said: “But why have you come to us? Go and appeal to your Zionist organizations”. On the same day A. A. Glukhovtsev, an official of the Central Committee’s Administrative Agencies Department, received several refuseniks (CCE 56.20). They were unable to obtain an audience at the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet.

On 26 April, when they had returned to Kiev, Liliana Varvak (CCE 53.25-2 [18], CCE 56.20 [14]), Leonid Korsunsky, the married couple Josif and Fanya Berenstein and Izolda Shelkova wrote “An Appeal to the Jewish People” (CCE 56.20 [8]):

“… Kiev is the only city in the USSR which has replied to mass refusals to grant permission to emigrate with mass collective protests and collective actions. And therefore it is the first city in which mass reprisals will be visited on the refusenik families …

“Jews throughout the world, help us!

“We are defenceless. The Soviet Union has effectively turned us into hostages. We do not know what ransom the Soviet State is prepared to accept for us, but we beg of you, help us, we will perish!

“Pay our ransom or set us free!“

By 15 May 34 more people had signed the appeal.

[9]

Since the end of April about 100 refuseniks have been summoned to the police and the KGB for talks intended to scare them. The leitmotif of the talks has been: do not sign collective letters, and stop these collective trips to Moscow.

District OVD Senior Inspector Baranets informed the Berensteins: “I won’t give you a moment’s rest. We’ll find a criminal charge for you!”

A KGB official told Leonid Kheifets: “Although you are not breaking any laws, your behaviour is antisocial. Anyway, the laws don’t apply to everyone.”

Many of the refuseniks have received warnings “about the unacceptability of leading a parasitic way of life”. These include both people who have an official source of income, e.g., Valery Kanevsky, D.Sci. (Physical & Mathematical Sciences) who is registered as a coach, and married women (Fanya Berenstein, Lina Brailovskaya).

The head of the Kiev City Department of Internal Affairs (UVD) Yu. L. Titarenko has said that anyone who is not at work from 9 am to 6 pm will be tried for parasitism.

Without the sanction of a Procurator, searches have been conducted at the flats of Kanevsky and Valery Pilnikov and body-searches of Kheifets and Varvak were conducted at the railway station.

On 7 May two policemen and seven KGB officials blocked the entrance to Shelkova’s flat when she was expecting guests. As people arrived, they were told: “There’s been a robbery in this flat. Show us your documents!” No one was allowed into the flat.

On 3 May Semyon Makhlis was taken straight from a ‘chat’ at a police station to a courtroom.

Here he discovered that during his conversation with an inspector he had been abusive. He was given 15 days in the cells. Makhlis has an ulcer. He is serving his sentence in a special detention centre where they have twice had to call on ambulance for him. Because of his health he refused to work and was put in a punishment cell for 24 hours.

On 5 May, after a ‘chat’ at a police station, Ilya Knizhnik went into a shop. A man ran up to him with the cry: “Why did you hit me?” 15 days.

Out of solidarity with Makhlis, Knizhnik refused to go out to work — again 24 hours in the punishment cells. Titarenko once said of Knizhnik: “That swine hates everything here. Even if all of them get permission to leave, I’ll do all I can to make him stay!”

On 6 May Stanislav Zubkov received a ten-day sentence for ‘slanderous utterances’ (“There’s no meat in the shops”).

At about 7 pm on 11 May Sokolov, a detective inspector from the Radyansky district OVD, and two policemen visited Kanevsky’s flat. Sokolov handed Kanevsky a summons for 7.30 pm. The line “You are summoned in the capacity of … ” was left blank: “Just come and well tell you about it then”.

When Kanevsky arrived at the police station at the appointed time he was shown a statement according to which he had been detained by the police and had put up resistance. Kanevsky was put in the cells (seven men in an area of six square metres). On the morning of 12 May Kanevsky was taken to the Radyansky district people’s court.

The first question Judge Mironenko put to him was: “So you want to emigrate to Israel?” Kanevsky petitioned for his wife (who was in the court building) and his mother to be summoned to testify that he had not been detained by the police and had therefore not put up resistance. The Judge rejected his petition. Then Mironenko had Kanevsky removed from his office. After consulting with President of the Court Novgorodsky, Mironenko gave Kanevsky 15 days on a new charge, that of refusing admittance to his home to district OVD Inspector Sokolov, who was delivering a summons.

On the morning of 13 May, just after J. Berenstein had left his house, a man came up to him, grabbed him by the sleeves and started shouting that Berenstein was using obscene language.

A policeman and a police van ‘happened’ to be close by. Head of the Darnitsky district OVD Gvozdetsky greeted Berenstein with the words: “Why did you sign the ‘Appeal to the Jewish People’?” The Judge at the Darnitsky people’s court who was asked to examine the ‘case’ against Berenstein refused to do so; also, the chief witness renounced his ‘evidence’ (for which act he was threatened with 15 days). They found another judge and another witness. 15 days.

Beginning on 10 May the authorities once again began to detain Kiev refuseniks and take them off trains. Nevertheless, by 13 May 47 refuseniks had arrived in Moscow.

On 13 May they went to the Party Central Committee building, where they were told at the reception that interviews would not be granted either to the group as a whole or to its representatives; they would receive two people only on condition that they were husband and wife, and furthermore they would not discuss ‘global issues’ with them. Albert Ivanov (CCE 48.17-2, CCE 50.4-2) promised the group that they would be received by the MVD the following day.

On 14 May about ten people delivered statements to the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet in which they renounced their citizenship. After this they went to the MVD. MVD officials told them that they would not discuss the situation in Kiev with them, but that the emigration cases of the 47 who had come to Moscow would be examined.

On 15 May the group went to the USSR Procuracy. The Head of Reception, N. V. Tsybulnik (CCE 48.2 [4], CCE 52.9-2), received them. They told him about the persecution of people who desired to emigrate. Tsybulnik promised ‘to sort it out and take measures’. To their complaint about the numerous refusals of permission to emigrate he said that these were not violations of law and they would have to appeal to the MVD. Tsybulnik’s comment on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was: ‘It’s for us, not for you’. At the end of their talk the group expressed their fears of reprisals against them and members of their families when they returned to Kiev. Tsybulnik objected that the USSR Procuracy would allow nothing of the sort. On 16 May the group returned to Kiev.

[10]

On the evening of 16 May, when one of the members of the group, Pilnikov, was about to get off a trolleybus, four men in civilian clothes attacked him.

They tied him up, took him off the trolleybus and started to accuse him of insulting an old man who had been sitting near the exit. They dragged Pilnikov to a Zhiguli car which was waiting by the bus stop and drove him away. The ‘victim’ was left standing at the bus stop.

On 17 May Pilnikov’s wife Olga Dudnik and several other refuseniks turned to Deputy Procurator of Kiev’s Moscow district L. V. Malik. During the conversation Malik said: ‘These are traitors; they are capable of anything’.

(On the same day five cars containing policemen and dogs tore up to the place where Kiev refuseniks were meeting. One dog was even let off his lead. At an order from Captain Odintsov they pushed Gennady Olshansky, Boris Faktorovich, Sergei Gorodissky, Igor Boretsky, David Chorny and Larissa Klimenko into the cars. At the police station their passport details were written down. They were released after three hours.)

On 19 May the Procurator of Moscow district sanctioned the arrest of Pilnikov on a charge of ‘malicious hooliganism’ (Article 206, pt. 2, UkSSR Criminal Code).

On 20 May O. Dudnik, S. Gorodissky and Pyotr Kats flew to Moscow. Tsybulnik assured them that Ukrainian Deputy Procurator S. F. Skopenko had received instructions regarding the Pilnikov case. He advised them to apply to Skopenko and to refer to him, Tsybulnik. He also said that the Ukraine had ‘gone too far’, but that instructions had been given and measures would be taken immediately. On the same day G. Olshansky, D. Chorny and Solomon Yurist were seized on the street in Kiev. (They were detained by the police for five hours.)

On 21 May Andreyev, Head of Reception at the Ukrainian Procuracy, categorically refused to make an appointment for Olga Dudnik to see Skopenko. On the telephone Skopenko denied that he had received any instructions from Moscow regarding the Pilnikov case.

Dudnik appealed to the City Procuracy. On 23 May she received a written answer from them: the measures chosen by the district Procurator had been correct.

(By 28 May 16 people, including Leonid and Liliana Varvak, V. Pilnikov and O. Dudnik, L. Korsunsky, B. Faktorovich, P. Kats, S. Gorodissky and D. Cherny had sent statements to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet renouncing their citizenship.)

Pilnikov’s trial was set for 20 June. On that day N. Ya. Nimirinskaya (CCE 53.5) from Voroshilovgrad, the defence counsel invited by Olga Dudnik, arrived in the courtroom. The trial was unexpectedly postponed. The Secretary to the Court asked Nimirinskaya when she would be able to come again. Nimirinskaya replied: ‘Any day except June 27’. The trial was set for June 27. It took place, however, on June 25 (Nimirinskaya discovered this from Olga Dudnik the evening before, but had already made other plans). The sentence was the maximum: five years in camps.

Dudnik still wished to engage Nimirinskaya, if only for an appeal. On 30 June, when setting off to fly to Voroshilovgrad, she was searched at the airport and all the papers connected with her husband’s case were taken away. (V. Pilnikov is Russian, O. Dudnik is a Jew; they are both refuseniks.)

At the end of March a woman from the Guardianship Council visited Liliana Varvak to inspect how her three children were being brought up. It turned out that Liliana’s mother L. M. Sergeyeva had sent a statement to the Council saying that Liliana was bringing her children up incorrectly (Sergeyeva categorically objects to the idea of her daughter leaving the USSR).

At the end of April three people from the Guardianship Council visited Liliana Varvak. They said that emigration to Israel was contrary to the children’s interests and that as Varvak was a believer she seemed to be giving her children a distorted view of reality. They asked her: “Do you hear the voice of God?” Liliana replied that this was like a psychiatric examination. She said that it was not her intention to give her children a specifically religious upbringing, but that she did read the Children’s Bible and prayers to them.

On 28 April the Guardianship Council issued a positive report (“the children are cared for, their mother gives them attention”), but it then issued another, contradictory report in which Liliana is made out to be at fault because of her religion. Liliana Varvak was taken to be examined at the district psychiatric clinic. Their report says that she is ‘socially dangerous’.

[11]

On 3 July Vladimir Kislik [¹] was detained by the police in the street.

On 4 July the Judge of Kiev’s Svyatoshinsky district arrested him for 15 days for ‘pestering foreigners’. Kislik had heart pains several times during the 15 days. On one occasion an ambulance was called. After his release Kislik was sent to the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital for a week (the Olympic competitions in Kiev finished on 27 July).

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