35. Эпилог «Огненных троп»
After my release, I learned that another twenty-seven people were still in prisons and camps. In addition, in various parts of the Union, in that same month five brutal murders took place in the families of believers who were actively seeking to emigrate for religious reasons. In Nakhodka, our neighbors’ son, Vanya Belousov, was killed. Vanya was burned alive with blowtorches. I reported everything by phone to the U.S., and half a year later I was arrested again.
And again — circles of hell: six months in prison in Komsomolsk-on-Amur, four of them in a death-row cell, Khabarovsk Prison, Magadan Prison. And finally, Kolyma Camp No. 4, in the settlement of Ukhtar. Again a penal work brigade, and again exhausting twelve-hour shifts without days off.
The penal brigade consisted mainly of murderers. On my left slept a cannibal, nicknamed Grandpa Said. On my right — the killer Vitka Yakut. Above me, on the upper bunk — a killer nicknamed Postman Pechkin. I spent a year and a half in that company. In the camp I also had to meet some interesting people: the dissident Arnold Yeremenko, who was serving time on a fabricated case for “stealing” his own firewood; he later became a member of the Russian Parliament. Before my release I managed to meet with Mustafa Dzhemilev, an activist for the return of Crimean Tatars to their historic homeland in Crimea. Mustafa served six sentences under Article 190-1. He is now the head of the Crimean Tatar government. I also met an Orthodox priest who was also serving time on a fabricated case — for fighting. In the camp they called him Father Hermogen.
All that time I did not receive a single letter; I was in total isolation. I didn’t know what was happening with my family. As I learned after my release, my family never received a single letter from me either, even though I regularly wrote one letter each month — the only one permitted under the strict regime.
Three weeks before my release, the camp’s operations officer read me a letter from my wife. In it she said that a trial date had been set for her and my mother for August 21. That news was the worst torture of all. Even though perestroika had begun, they were still tried; however, they soon fell under Gorbachev’s amnesty.
I was released on August 27. After my release, the U.S. Congressional Commission on Human Rights asked me to prepare a report on the situation of believers in the USSR. I met with the Congressional Commission in Moscow. Three months later I received an invitation to meet with the Secretary of State, Mr. Schultz, to discuss the emigration of believers from the USSR. A week later, on behalf of the U.S. Secretary of State, I met and held talks with the Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Shifter. A month later the Chief Justice of the United States invited me for a conversation. He explained the complexity of our issue: “The whole question is funding. By law we accept refugees on national grounds — Jews and political refugees, dissidents. As of today we have no law for refugees on religious grounds; that means Congress cannot allocate money. Temporarily we can take you under Jewish invitations. But that cannot last long, because money allocated for Jews will be spent on you, and Jewish community organizations will protest, and they have strong positions in Congress. You must make sure you are heard in Congress, so that the status of refugee on religious grounds is legitimized. After all, you wouldn’t like it either if money allocated for refugees on religious grounds were used for Gypsies who would pass themselves off as Pentecostals, just as you now have to pass yourselves off as Jews.”
On May 30 I was invited to meet with the President of the United States, Mr. Reagan. The meeting lasted two hours. Mr. Reagan said that everything I had just spoken about, I must present to the U.S. Congress. During the banquet one of the President’s aides approached me and handed me an invitation to the U.S. Congress for August 4, 1988.
On June 10 I received an exit visa to the United States. The next day KGB General Grinev came to my home. “Do you think everything is over, that you’ve won? We, using the hands of your own brothers, will deal you such a slap that you won’t come to your senses. You’ve been butting your head against an iron wall. Now your believers will rush through the breach, run over your back, and trample you as well. Our people are everywhere!”
To be honest, that is exactly what happened. People from the KGB are indeed everywhere. I felt all of that very quickly.
On July 26, 1988, I arrived in America with my family. On August 4, 1988, I read my report before the U.S. Congress on the situation of believers in the Soviet Union. Using my family and the Pentecostal community of Nakhodka as an example, I described the situation of Pentecostals in the Soviet Union. As I walked in the Capitol building toward the podium where I was to deliver the report, I mentally surveyed the entire length of the fiery trail that had brought me there. Only then did I clearly realize that I had been meant to walk that path.
If I had not gone through all those hardships — the dangerous meetings with diplomats, delivering documents to them about the situation of believers, the many risky trips, the searches, arrests, escapes, prisons, camps, torture, hunger, the murderous labor in penal brigades — through everything I would need to speak about, I would never have been standing there.
God led me and my family through all the hardships that the people of God endured under Soviet rule. What could I have told Congress on behalf of the people if I had not fully experienced it all myself?
Two months after my report, Congress voted to grant refugee status to Pentecostals and allocated money for refugees on religious grounds. Two years later — for Baptists and Adventists.
The fact that the United States legalized the status of refugee on religious grounds did not yet solve the whole problem. The Soviet Union stubbornly refused to acknowledge that people were leaving the country for religious reasons, and OVIR offices openly demanded Israeli invitations. I turned to Anatoly Sharansky, who was then a member of the Israeli Knesset, with a request to arrange the sending of Israeli invitations for those wishing to leave the USSR on religious grounds.
Sharansky approached the Israeli Foreign Ministry and received a refusal. Israel refused to send invitations to people with Slavic surnames. Anatoly explained to me that he could personally send twenty, thirty, fifty invitations, but that would not solve the problem.
I learned that invitations could be purchased in New York, on Brighton Beach. You had to pay money for them. For around two years I had to travel to American churches, look for sponsors and funds to pay for the invitations.
In this way, by 1990 I paid for about a thousand invitations.
To date, over 400,000 Pentecostals, Subbotniks, Baptists, and Adventists have entered the United States with refugee status.
“Remember the prisoners as if you were bound with them, and the mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body.” (Hebrews 13:3)
One of the purposes of this book was to remind of the years of struggle, suffering, and sacrifice — on the one hand, and of provocations, betrayals, and efforts to conceal the truth about our exodus — on the other.
It is astonishing how many among us turned out to be people who faithfully served the Soviet regime until that regime collapsed, and now, having taken advantage of refugee status, came to the USA and seized control of many churches. Yet earlier they preached that the Soviet government was from God, and that those not submissive to the Soviet government were not submissive to God, and in those days they, along with the KGB, persecuted us and our families to the extent of their ability. Now they are bankers of heavenly banks. Uncontrollably disposing of church money, they build palaces for themselves and zealously serve mammon. Meanwhile, former prisoners of the Faith remain in oblivion. How short is the memory of our people?
But our sacrifices were not in vain. By entering into a mortal combat with the red dragon, we, Christ’s kindred, doomed ourselves and our families to suffering, and many lost their lives. And may this book remind you at what cost we all gained freedom.
The proceeds from the publication of this book will be donated to the needs of former prisoners — Christians of the Evangelical Faith — and also for the human-rights work of those who continue to be persecuted in our time. I am attaching government documents which confirm that the work continues.
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