The History of My Departure
Part One
By: Yuri Tuvim - Jan 28, 2007
We were living in a communal flat in a four story pre-Revolutionary building on Stoleshnikov lane two minutes from the Moscow City Hall. This flat had eleven rooms populated by eleven families, one kitchen with several gas stoves, one bathroom, one toilet and a telephone in the corridor. Our 300 sq. feet room was divided into three by plywood partitions. Compared to other families our living conditions were quite acceptable: the center of the city, three metro stations around, several bus and trolley lines, high ceilings, hardwood floors…And we had a car! Small and old but, nevertheless, a piece of luxury – less than one percent of Muscovites owned cars at that time. Also, my wife Lara and I were PhD's and our salaries were higher than those of most folks around. So, it looked like we had no right to be unhappy. However, this was not the case.
At that time a certain part of the intelligentsia was living a double life. Eight hours per day we were diligent soviet engineers and scientists, but in the evenings we were tuning our radios trying to reach thru jamming Russian Language broadcasts of BBC, Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, or Call of Israel. Another major characteristic of our life was the spread of the underground literature. We were reading not only anonymous articles printed on typewriters but also photocopies of books which were removed from libraries many years ago. My friend historian Roy Medvedev had written a book about Stalin. He asked me to photograph hundreds typed pages in order to smuggle the negatives abroad for publication. I spent many hours using a smart contraption which was made by Roy's friend. After developing 35mm films I would cut off the perforation, chop the whole length on pieces of four frames and assemble them in neat packages. When the correspondent of The New York Times Hedrick Smith would come to us for a cup of tea, I would give him the package to send abroad. Roy's book was published in several languages but I can't claim that it was from my negatives. Certainly, he had other people helping him.
All this activity would not last unnoticeable by informers. Telephones were bugged. I thought our communal phone with thirty talkers would be hard to monitor but one newer new for sure. When talking about politics in presence of a telephone we would replace the receiver on the cradle with some heavy object, unscrew the mouthpiece cover and took out the microphone. Did it help? Nobody newÂ…
One day a technician in our lab asked me to go outside. I followed him to a boulevard. We sat, he looked around and asked me if I knew where his wife was working.
- I have no idea.
- She works at a post office.
- So what?
- She works in YOUR post office.
- So what?
- A KGB man came and ordered not to deliver letters addressed to you. They must be collected, KGB would take them and later they would be returned to the post office to be delivered to you. Tell your friends to be careful.
The guy was not even a close friend of mine…Just a good human – Volodya Kot.
Gradually I came to the conclusion that the situation in the USSR would not be improved. Violations of human rights, lies, invasion into Czechoslovakia, increasing shortages of everything, vehement anti-Zionist propaganda which was just a cover for the state anti-Semitism… My understanding was that Jews have no future in the USSR. Not the religious – that goes without saying, but the simple secular people like me in whose internal passport were written that J word.
This life could not continue forever. One way out was applying for joining "relatives" in Israel. Almost 100% of applicants did not have any relatives there, but who could prove that? The affidavit from Israel was the first step into whirlwind of harassment, firing from work, condemnations, etc.
Moreover, the great number of applicants was not permitted to leave becoming "refuseniks", i.e. exit visa was denied to them. My wife was dead set against emigration. So you can imagine our happy family life. Another way to end that Orwellian nightmare was to join active and open dissidents. That was very dangerous but I was quite ready to do so. However, fate found the third way.
One late fall morning in 1973 I went out from our apartment building to find my car missing. I called the police and took a trolley to work. During lunch time I called again and was told that the car was found and I had to come to the central office of the road police. There I was guided to an office where a police major was sitting.
- So, tell me how you did it.
- I went out to go to work but the car was gone, just fresh tracks in the snow.
- You shall tell this fairytale to somebody else but to me tell the truth.
- What truth? I'm telling you the truth, the car was driven away!
- Tell me how you ran into the person, how you ran away from the place of the accident.
- What are you talking about?! The car was stolen!!
- Well then, I'm warning you that the refusal to confess will make the punishment harsher.
- I did not hurt anybody! The car was stolen, is it damaged? May I see it?
- The car will be produced in due time as the material evidence of your crime. Now go home and think hard, really hard. Tomorrow at that time I expect to hear your confession. Also, bring your clothes and shoes for analysis.
I left in total bewilderment. What was going on? Why bring the clothes? If I could give them not mine but another person clothes what would they derive from it? Also, what would happen, if the doorman of a small hotel across the street would testify that he saw me taking the car early in the morning? The doorman did not like me because according the traffic regulations I parked my car on his side of the street. All doormen were obliged to cooperate with KGB that was the very well known fact.
I told everything to my friend writer Lidiya Chukovskaya and she gave me the telephone of a lawyer who took the case of her daughter Lyusha when she was hurt in a traffic accident. Lyusha was in a taxi which was pushed off the road and rammed. That was organized by the KGB thugs.
I called the lawyer and went to see him. After he heard my story he said: "Stop! Car accidents are not investigated this way. This is not the road police. This is something else. I don't know but something is cooking, be very careful". From the lawyer's office I went to work, took a typewriter and composed the request to the administration of the Institute to give me a character reference because I was going to emigrate in order to join my aunt in Israel. Submitting this note I felt relief. The double life ended. The desire to emigrate from "the best country of the world" was an act of defiance. The authorities knew perfectly well that "to join relatives in Israel" was the only pretension, the only possible way to leave the country. People who decided to emigrate were plunging into the unpredictable. Firing from work, harassment by police, kids beaten in school and on street – all these were everyday occurrences. Moreover, in very many cases exit visas were refused and people were left high and dry – no jobs at all or only manual jobs for scientists, teachers, and engineers…This situation could continue for months and years but still people were applying. There was a saying at that time: "The brave ones are leaving, but the most courageous are staying".
In a couple of days my clothes and the car were returned to me. The car was undamaged, only one headlamp was broken. There was no talk about the accident, evidently nobody was hurtÂ….
A few weeks after I submitted my request a meeting was called at the Institute. At that gathering I was berated and expelled from the trade union. When I told this to an activist-refusnik Melik Agurski he suggested writing a letter to the Central Committee of the KPSU. In the letter we wrote that this action of stupid bureaucrats of the Institute was undermining the efforts of the Soviet Government to fulfill its international obligations and its effort to preserve and enforce the Human Rights in the USSR. We also said that this action was helping American reactionaries to maintain the Jackson-Vanink resolution in Congress when progressive lawmakers were struggling to remove it (the resolution linked the freedom to emigrate with the status of the most preferable trading country).
I dropped this letter into a mailbox and in a few days the postal service delivered an invitation for a meeting with an instructor of the Moscow Party Committee comrade Smirnova. So, with a briefcase in hand, dressed in my best (and only) suit, I went to Staraya Square.
There, in a huge complex of old and new buildings, was located the pinnacle of the ruling power. The pass was waiting and I easily found the office of Ms. Smirnova but she was not there. Her secretary advised me to have a cup of coffee in a buffet down the corridor. After the coffee and the tastiest cheapest sandwich in my life I decided to stroll along these red carpeted quiet corridors of power.