Vladimir Toltz and Sergei Kovalev on my investigator, satan's servant Istomin. The Five and the five-ers. The 5th Directorate of the KGB. Broadcast eight: Sergei Kovalev and case No. 345
«You are in our hands, and your God will not help you. You believe in God, while I believe in and serve Satan. Yes, yes, I truly serve Satan.» — that is how I was introduced by Colonel Istomin, investigator for especially important cases in the 5th Political Directorate of the KGB. He boasted to me that he had broken the dissident Sergey Kovalyov. Below I offer a recollection from Radio “Svoboda” by Sergey Kovalyov himself about the investigation and the investigator, at that time still a KGB major, Istomin.
Vladimir Tolts: I intend to devote the entire radio hour today to the continuation of the story about the documents recently published in Lithuania. In one of those we cited last time, the name of a man who lives not in Lithuania at all but in Moscow was mentioned — my old friend Sergey Adamovich Kovalyov. He was arrested in Moscow in 1974. But the investigation, and indeed the trial, to which Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, who had traveled specially for it, was not admitted, and while the ceremony awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize was taking place in Oslo (accepted by Elena Georgievna Bonner), the Nobel laureate froze in front of the courthouse where his comrade Sergey Kovalyov was being tried — all of that happened in Vilnius. Kovalyov was already tried at the end of 1975, nearly a year after his arrest. Six months before that, Lieutenant Colonel Liniauskas, the senior investigator for special cases of the KGB Investigation Department, submitted to his superior, Colonel Kisminas, a detailed “Plan of Investigative Measures in Case No. 345,” which stated in part:
Geneticist and Soviet dissident Sergey Adamovich Kovalyov shortly before his arrest in 1974 with his associates
“On December 27, 1974, Sergey Adamovich Kovalyov, born in 1930, residing in Moscow, was arrested in criminal case No. 345, charged under Part 1 of Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code with the following: from 1969 until the day of his arrest, acting together with other persons with the aim of undermining and weakening Soviet power, he took part in discussing and signing a series of protest letters, appeals, and statements of a slanderous nature, which were placed in the illegal publication ‘Chronicle of Current Events.’ He forwarded them abroad for use by bourgeois propaganda outlets, to the detriment of the political interests of the Soviet Union. Acting with the same aims, he established contact with the publishers of the ‘Chronicle of the Catholic Church of Lithuania,’ an illegally published periodical in Lithuania. He received from them materials of a slanderous content, placed them in the illegal publication ‘Chronicle of Current Events,’ and took part in forwarding them abroad. From May 1974, together with other persons, he illegally published the ‘Chronicle of Current Events’ of a slanderous nature. He distributed Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s anti-Soviet book ‘The Gulag Archipelago.’ In the presented charges, Kovalyov did not admit his guilt. The crimes committed by him are confirmed by witness testimony and material evidence.”
Vladimir Tolts: The plan further described measures needed to be carried out for (I quote) “further documentation of the criminal activities of Kovalyov S.A. and his accomplices.” First on the list were the interrogations of Tatiana Sergeevna Khodorovich and Tatiana Mikhailovna Velikanova.
“On January 22, 1975, during a search in the apartment of Tatiana Sergeevna Khodorovich, a sheet of paper was seized beginning with the words: ‘Statement to Foreign Correspondents,’ in which it is stated that T. Velikanova, S. Kovalyov, and T. Khodorovich considered it their duty to contribute to the widest possible dissemination of the ‘Chronicle of Current Events.’ The document is dated May 7, 1974. A similar statement on behalf of the above-named persons was published on February 3, 1975, in the émigré newspaper ‘The European Lithuanian,’ issued in London, and other foreign publications. Question in this regard as witnesses Tatiana Sergeevna Khodorovich, residing in Moscow, Prospekt Mira, House 60, Apartment 156, and Tatiana Velikanova.”
Vladimir Tolts: What followed was a long list of names of Sergey Kovalyov’s acquaintances who were to be interrogated. As well as some of his coworkers, whose names were to be selected.
- Question three or four witnesses who worked with Kovalyov S.A. before his arrest at the Moscow Fishery Reclamation Experimental Station of the Ministry of Agriculture of the RSFSR, who can characterize his socio-political views and behavior.
- During a search of Sergey Adamovich Kovalyov’s apartment on December 23, 1974, two address books were seized in which the addresses and telephone numbers of various persons were recorded, including a number of foreigners.
A: identify the indicated persons and resolve the question of their questioning as witnesses in relation to Kovalyov S.A.
B: obtain reports from the relevant institutions on the foreigners appearing in Kovalyov’s address books for inclusion in the criminal case file.
C: establish to whom the telephone numbers belong which are recorded in Kovalyov’s address books and obtain the relevant reports for inclusion in the criminal case file.”
- Sergey Kovalyov, Tatiana Khodorovich, Tatiana Velikanova, Grigory Podyapolsky, and Anatoly Krasnov-Levitin openly declared their collaboration with the “Chronicle of Current Events”
Vladimir Toltz: The multi-page plan of action further provided for various ways of checking certain reports from the samizdat publication “Chronicle of Current Events,” the dissemination of which Kovalev, Velikanova, and Khodorovich had taken upon themselves to promote, as well as the forensic examination of typewriters seized during searches, the obtaining of information about the distribution of the “Chronicle of Current Events” and the “Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church” abroad, inquiries about the travel abroad of certain prominent dissidents, etc.
I repeat: at the time this plan was drawn up, Sergey Kovalev, arrested in late December 1974, had already been in prison for six months. But much had begun before the arrest.
Dissident writers Andrei Sinyavsky, Nina Voronel, and Yuli Daniel. Andrei Sinyavsky was imprisoned with Vasily Patrushev in Potma in Mordovia, and Alexander Ginzburg was imprisoned with Fyodor Sidenko. There a fruitful collaboration began between the Pentecostals of Nakhodka and Soviet dissidents. That was a mistake of the KGB.
Sergey Kovalev: In ’74 a thing was done to me, I find it hard even to call it a warning; perhaps it was a hint that [if] I came to my senses, repented, gave some promises, then, maybe, everything would turn out all right. The matter was very simple. In ’74 I was at Yulik Daniel’s birthday party, and he told me: “Oh, listen, by the way, I was summoned to the KGB.” I don’t remember who it was, maybe it was that same, you remember, the person whose pseudonym had an Asian-style first name and patronymic…
Vladimir Toltz: Bulat Bezarbaevich Karataev. In fact, the first name and patronymic are not pseudonyms at all. Only the last name, taken from Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” was fake. His real surname is Imanbaev. Colonel. An adjutant to Bobkov. He handled dissident cases. Yakir and Krasin, for example, yours too. And what’s more — many of us who were dragged to Lubyanka in the 1970s–80s know him.
Sergey Kovalev: Maybe, yes, something like that. And Yulik said that he had invited him for a conversation. By that time Yulik was no longer in Kaluga but in Moscow; he had been allowed to return. He said, they told him: “It seems you are closely acquainted, you are friends with a certain Kovalev.” Yulik said: “Yes, I am acquainted with Sergey Adamovich. I am not prepared to comment on our relationship, but yes, I know him.” “So, give him a message,” his interlocutor said, “that he should not play with fire.” Yulik said: “Generally speaking, I don’t take assignments from you. I’ll tell him about our conversation when the occasion arises. As far as I know Kovalev, he is an independent adult, he isn’t stupid and understands his circumstances, he makes his own decisions. What, in fact, am I to him?” “Well, just tell him.” Yulik asked me, I think he even said that he had told his interlocutor that, in due course, not on purpose, he would mention this conversation, but he didn’t think it would make much of an impression on Kovalev.
Vladimir Toltz: Wait a minute! I must remind the listeners that I am talking with my old friend, the Soviet human rights defender and prisoner Sergey Kovalev, who for many years was an object of intense KGB attention. Let me also explain that many of those we are mentioning in this conversation are our mutual old acquaintances. Therefore, for instance, the use of the diminutive “Yulik” when speaking of Yuli Markovich Daniel — a writer convicted along with Andrei Sinyavsky in 1966 for publishing his works in the West (a quarter of a century later it was recognized that their actions “contained no corpus delicti”) — the use of certain names with a diminutive suffix by no means implies that Sergey Adamovich intends to belittle the dignity of the individuals he mentions. And since I’ve interrupted, it’s probably necessary for those much younger than us to at least briefly explain the context of what we are talking about. We are discussing the events of 1974, more precisely the early autumn of ’74. In the spring of ’74 my interlocutor, together with Tatyana Velikanova and Tatyana Khodorovich, made a statement about their intention to promote the distribution of the “Chronicle of Current Events,” the publication of which had been suspended under the influence of the investigation into the case of the arrested Pyotr Yakir and Viktor Krasin (we will discuss this case in detail in later broadcasts)…
I remember perfectly well and have already told you about our conversation when they, so to speak, “cracked,” and it became widely known in Moscow even before their statement. Everyone, acquaintances, acquaintances of acquaintances and so on, said that they were being subjected to some kind of psychotropic influence, that this could not be happening, they weren’t being tortured after all. I came to you, as a person connected with biology, and asked what kind of psychotropic agents there were, because back then we had never heard of “truth serum,” we had not seen so many detective films. And you said: yes, such agents exist. We went with you to the beer bar “Rakushka” underneath your building, where we ordered vodka to go with our beer. You said: “Here’s a perfect example — a psychotropic agent, it loosens the tongue just as needed.” Somehow, for me personally, that was a reality check. You know, before that there had been something elevated, poetic, and here came such crudeness, the prose of life…
Sergey Kovalev: You know, Istomin told me afterwards…
Vladimir Toltz: Istomin — your investigator, just to be clear.
Sergey Kovalev: So, Anatoly Alexandrovich Istomin told me, I don’t know whether he was telling the truth or not. He said: “You see, I’ve developed a certain…” He took part in the Yasir and Krasin case. “I developed a certain sympathy for Pyotr Ivanovich.” And once I decided — maybe it was Petya’s birthday, or something — once I decided: why not, I’ll bring him a small bottle of vodka to our meeting. You understand that I, of course, in my position couldn’t carry it concealed somewhere; I decided to warn the administration of the detention facility. Nothing special.”…
Vladimir Tolz: Actually, in official language—one needs to translate all this to strip away the story’s poetry—it was a “sanctioned operational measure.”
Sergei Kovalev: He wanted it to be a sanctioned operational measure. And I don’t know what here is true in his story and what is not, but he told me: “The administration of the detention facility convinced me that this should under no circumstances be done. Law is law, rules are rules. Pyotr Ionovich will manage without a drink on his birthday or on some other memorable date.” And I didn’t do it,” so Istomin told me. I don’t know what really happened.
Vladimir Tolz: And what kind of person was this Istomin? You talked a lot, after all.
Sergei Kovalev: We talked a great deal. He was effectively the head of the investigative team. All those 12 people on the investigative team had a completely different official boss, some Lithuanian lieutenant colonel, with a genuine Lithuanian surname. I saw him once or twice. He didn’t conduct a single interrogation. Our interactions were just empty formalities. Istomin worked with me. I think he directed the team’s investigation, along with a little bit from Captain Lazaravichus of the Vilnius KGB. That’s all.
Vladimir Tolz: Well, thanks to a recent Vilnius publication, I now understand who they’re talking about. The lieutenant colonel Kovalev mentions is the senior investigator for especially important cases of the KGB Investigations Department under the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR, Lieutenant Colonel Liniauskas. And Captain Lazaravichus, whom Kovalev mentions, had risen to colonel by 1991 and became department head. However, let’s get back to Istomin, whom Sergei knew better…
Sergei Kovalev: Our communication was very simple, because, except for three lengthy interrogations, I refused to give any testimony whatsoever, I only occasionally repeated my reasons for refusing. It was just conversation. I think I was fully in control of what I could speak frankly about. Everything I talked about, I either spoke about frankly or didn’t say at all. That’s the simplest stance. And what did I speak frankly about? I expressed my views on Soviet power, on statehood in the Soviet Union, about this and that. I never hid any of that; we wrote about it openly, we signed our names, I said nothing new to Istomin. I must say that he was quite amiable toward me as well…
Vladimir Tolz: Here again, rather for our listeners, I must explain that we have smoothly moved from case No. 24, that is the case of Yakir and Krasin, to your case. And here’s a question that concerns both: during the investigation, certain materials were presented to you, and also to Yakir and Krasin, which we learned about in one way or another. Now, using the example of your case, which is probably easier for you, can you assess the nature of that information? Some of it was open. For instance, you, along with others, took personal responsibility…
Sergei Kovalev: For a whole series of statements about resuming the “Chronicle.” No, that’s not quite right. If you read carefully that statement, signed by Velikanova, Kovalev, Khodorovich, there are no words saying that we are the authors, that we are resuming publication of the “Chronicle.”
Vladimir Tolz: You take responsibility for distribution.
Sergei Kovalev: Yes. True, but that distribution was precisely the resumption of publication. Yet that was not stated in the statement.
Vladimir Tolz: We now understand all these verbal subtleties. Your actions, one way or another, your public actions, your declaration fell under the disposition of Article 70 [of the RSFSR Criminal Code] on the distribution of anti-Soviet materials. Of course, assuming it would have been proven that the “Chronicle” is subject to the article on “anti-Soviet propaganda and agitation”—that is a separate conversation entirely. I have a different question.
Sergei Kovalev: Incidentally, Tanya Khodorovich had nothing to do with the publication of the “Chronicle.”
Vladimir Tolz: It was [this statement] a matter of honor and responsibility.
Sergei Kovalev: Yes, it was a matter of honor and responsibility for all three of us. Tanya Velikanova and I had a direct and immediate connection to the publication.
Vladimir Tolz: You were asked questions regarding a number of your statements, including the one we have just examined. To what extent, in your opinion, were those questions based then not only on the open part of your statements, but also on operational information—wiretaps, you know, agent reports…
Sergei Kovalev: Volodya, you understand that it is quite difficult to answer this question with absolute certainty.
Vladimir Tolz: I’m only talking about a sense of it.
Sergei Kovalev: I think that both took place, and that this statement of ours was perceived as a certain challenge. But, of course, there were operational data as well. A significant part of that operational data emerged somewhat later.
Vladimir Tolts: Sergei Kovalev. On how certain operational data appeared in his investigation file, and much more, in the second part of this episode of the program “Time Difference.”
Before we continue, let me explain, for those who’ve just joined us and for anyone who may not have heard the previous broadcast in this series, that while examining recently published materials from the Lithuanian KGB, I stumbled upon the “Plan of Investigative Measures in Case No. 345.” This was the case in which my old friend Sergei Kovalev was arrested in Moscow at the end of 1974. His name is now known to many. Sergei Adamovich Kovalev—a member of the Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR and, though it wasn’t advertised at the time, one of the leading participants in the samizdat publication Chronicle of Current Events. After serving seven years in prison and camp and three years of exile following his arrest, Kovalev became a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in 1990 and then served as a deputy in the State Duma from 1993 to 2003. He was chairman of the Human Rights Commission under President Yeltsin, the first Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation, and later a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe… But all that came later. And his arrest in 1974 wasn’t for any of that at all…
In one of the broadcasts in this series, I presented and supported my view on the reasons for the creation of the KGB’s Fifth Directorate. To a significant degree, it was a bureaucratic contrivance aimed at demonstrating Andropov’s “professional fitness” in the position of KGB Chairman, which he had just assumed. But we mustn’t underestimate the social context in which the Fifth was created. The 1960s saw a rise in the Soviet Union, especially in its capitals, of uncontrolled civic activism, which largely found its reflection and expression in samizdat. It was samizdat, in those years, that secretly gave the Soviet reader a re-typed version of Doctor Zhivago from a foreign edition, home-produced translations of Orwell and Koestler, and Hemingway’s novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, unpublished then in the Soviet Union. In Moscow, among a very limited circle of “insiders,” compilations of socio-political information compiled by Roy Medvedev were circulated—later published in the West under the title Political Diary. The turning point of this typewriting activity and seditious ferment was the case of the writers Andrei Sinyavsky and Yuli Daniel, who secretly published their works abroad under pseudonyms, and whom we already mentioned in the first part of today’s program. They were arrested in the autumn of 1965.
Lyudmila Alexeyeva writes in her History of Dissent:
“The arrest of the writers was perceived as a prologue to ominous changes.
It was evidently with this arrest that the new Soviet leadership declared war on samizdat—its authors, distributors, and readers. <…>
In this atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty, on December 5, 1965, the first demonstration with human rights slogans in the history of Soviet power took place on Pushkin Square in Moscow. <…>
According to Bukovsky (from information given by a friend of his who attended the demonstration), about 200 people came to the Pushkin monument at the designated time. [32] But I was on the square and I think there were far fewer demonstrators; however, so many plainclothes KGB officers and voluntary public-order helpers had been sent there that it was hard to tell who was who. Besides, most of the “insiders” on the square, like me, took no part in the demonstration, only watching it from the sidelines <…>
Volpin and a few people beside him unfurled small placards, but they were quickly snatched by trained hands, and even those standing nearby didn’t have time to read what was on them. It later became known that the placards read: “We Demand an Open Trial for Sinyavsky and Daniel!” and “Respect the Soviet Constitution!”.
About 20 people were detained. They were shoved into cars. The scene was clearly visible thanks to the flashbulbs of Western correspondents, who had learned of the demonstration and came to watch this spectacle so unusual in the Soviet capital.
The detainees were released after a few hours. Most of them were students. All of them, along with those merely spotted on the square that evening, were expelled from their institutes—about 40 people in all.”
Dissident Natalya Gorbanevskaya
Vladimir Tolts: There had been demonstrations and trials before. But never before, as this time, especially after the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel, had samizdat distributed as much information about the case and about the mass protests of the intelligentsia over the arrest and sentencing of the writers. And from there it rolled on like a snowball down a hill…
The apotheosis of the growing samizdat activity came a year after Andropov was appointed head of the KGB, with the appearance of the first uncensored human-rights information bulletin in the USSR—the Chronicle of Current Events. Until 1972, the bulletin came out regularly, roughly every two months. Its first compiler was Natalya Gorbanevskaya. The publication declared itself legal “in the sense that its content, form, and method of distribution did not contradict the legislation in force at the time.” At the same time, the compilers did not disclose their names:
“The Chronicle” is by no means an illegal publication, but the conditions of its work are constrained by peculiar notions of legality and freedom of information that have developed over many years in certain Soviet agencies. Therefore, the “Chronicle” cannot, like any other journal, print its mailing address on the last page. Nevertheless, anyone interested in keeping the Soviet public informed about events taking place in the country can easily pass along information they know to the “Chronicle.” Tell it to the person from whom you obtained the “Chronicle,” and that person will tell the one from whom they obtained it, and so on. Just don’t try to follow the entire chain alone, or you may be mistaken for an informer.”
Dissident Tatiana Khodorovich
Vladimir Tolts: Clearly, the emergence of such a publication beyond the authorities’ control at a time when Andropov had sent the Central Committee his first annual report on his KGB successes in combating ideological contagion, and its regular continuation despite all the operational efforts of the Five, could not fail to alarm the Lubyanka. At the end of 1972 these efforts brought it a temporary victory. — After the 27th issue of the Chronicle came out, its publication was suspended under threats that each new issue would cause arrests, and not necessarily those who produced that particular issue. (To make the blackmail convincing, Irina Belgorodskaya, who had been involved in organizing the reprinting of certain issues, was arrested.)
But less than a year later, it was decided to resume publication. Three issues were prepared at once, their contents covering the period while the Chronicle was suspended, filling the resulting gap. By early May 1974 all three issues — No. 28, No. 29 and No. 30 — were ready. And as we already recounted in the first part of the program, three members of the Initiative Group for Human Rights — Tatiana Velikanova, Tatiana Khodorovich and Sergei Kovalev — issued a statement to the press:
“Not considering, despite the repeated assertions of KGB organs and judicial bodies of the USSR, the ‘Chronicle of Current Events’ an illegal or slanderous publication, we have deemed it our duty to facilitate its dissemination as widely as possible.
We are convinced of the necessity that truthful information about violations of basic human rights in the Soviet Union be available to all who are interested in it.”
Vladimir Tolts: And nine months later, Kovalev was arrested.
Now it is time to return to Kovalev’s account, focusing our attention primarily on the “operational moments” and the actions of State Security (since the “Fivers” are the main heroes of this series of programs).
Dissident Tatiana Velikanova
Sergei Kovalev: How did the criminal case begin, my criminal case? It began, as most criminal cases began, with a simple fabricated myth. Supposedly, they happened to enter such-and-such an apartment. Those who had the right and means to enter this apartment discovered something unexpected there. It was the niece of the apartment’s owner, who had a key to the apartment and instructions from the owner to keep an eye on it. And the apartment was rented by Tanya Velikanova on Mantulinskaya Street from an old woman who left each year from early spring until late autumn. That’s where we worked. They were simply excellent conditions, unlike some other places where we produced the “Chronicle.” A whole little apartment, clean, nice. So, about this apartment — it was autumn, late September ’74, it’s clear that this apartment had been identified, it was being watched, and there were even fairly clear signs. I don’t know, maybe it was bugged too.
Vladimir Tolts: The search was carried out in the absence of the tenants. As is clear from the protocols, what was found?
Sergei Kovalev: The protocols indicated the following: the owner’s niece, on her aunt’s instructions given back in the spring, went to the apartment to see how things were. She found the apartment in order, but in the corner there was a large pile of papers. And when, out of curiosity, she looked into those papers, she suddenly saw that they dealt with trials, arrests, something like that. She got very frightened; she decided that the apartment was being used by some criminal gang. She stated that she wasn’t interested in political matters, she saw that it talked about searches, prison, things like that. And she went to the police and said, “Sort this out.” So they sorted it out.
Vladimir Tolts: They sorted it out. And did they arrest you right away? No.
Sergei Kovalev: No, not right away.
Vladimir Tolts: Were you summoned in connection with this report?
Sergei Kovalev: No, not summoned. I learned all this later, in Vilnius.
Vladimir Tolts: In Vilnius after the arrest?
Sergei Kovalev: After the arrest, yes, of course. A separate assignment came from Vilnius to Moscow in connection with the case of the Lithuanian Catholic Church, stating that a certain Moscow resident, a certain Kovalev, was apparently linked to this “Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church.” In connection with this separate assignment, they came to search his place. And since they came to search me, and I wasn’t prepared for that search, a piece of paper was found in my briefcase that began: “What, I think, was there?” How did that piece of paper come about? One day, after coming to that apartment on Mantulinskaya Street, we saw that a lot of the documents neatly piled in the corner against the wall had disappeared. After making a cursory check, I wrote that note “What, I think, was there?” where I listed what had been there and was no longer. But that way, apparently, one could consider me tied to that apartment. Although, of course, that wasn’t the case; of course, there was surveillance, and of course, they tracked down the apartment. And I can say that with complete certainty. Because there were strange rings at the door when there seemed to be no one home, and there were phone calls. I don’t even know — was it an operational game? It’s unlikely they were checking by that method; they have far more covert ways of finding out whether someone is there or not. Maybe it wasn’t a warning, but it was, so to speak, intimidation.
Vladimir Tolts: Did you feel any physical surveillance on you then?
Sergei Kovalev: No. I later happened to notice physical surveillance, but I can’t vouch for knowing how to spot carefully concealed surveillance. That surveillance was sometimes quite overt. Although shortly before the arrest, I think I did notice things that were not openly demonstrated.
I was arrested in late December. I was arrested on December 26 or 27, 1974.
Vladimir Tolts: And did they bring you to Vilnius?
Sergei Kovalev: No, they brought me to Lefortovo.
Vladimir Tolts: That’s where Istomin entered your life.
Sergei Kovalev: No, Istomin didn’t enter then — at that point Lazaryavichus appeared. Istomin appeared later, in Vilnius. Actually, Lazaryavichus turned up early in the morning after the arrest. I was arrested in the afternoon in Moscow, at the KGB building where I’d been summoned for interrogation, at the Lubyanka. Until then everything had been quite normal; I held up well. But when they drove me from Lubyanka to Lefortovo, it was shameful, because I was trembling all over. It was like in Galich’s song: “Three people ride, he’s in the middle, two gendarmes on either side.” On the back seat, one on each side, those guys sat, and I was shaking. I was so ashamed! But I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t stop that nervous trembling. Anyway, that’s how it was.
Vladimir Tolts: What kind of man was Lazaryavichus?
Sergei Kovalev: Lazaryavichus was a captain, a narrow-minded, cynical man. Compared to him, Istomin was a giant of thought. I don’t think he played a major role. He conducted the first interrogations, but I’d say he did it in a very bureaucratic way. On Istomin’s part… Istomin readily agreed that I wouldn’t answer the questions recorded in the protocol — that was my position. I declared it, repeated it several times, justified it in my brief statements entered into the record. And it was a position of non-participation in the investigation, in an unlawful investigation. Istomin accepted that. He would ask bureaucratic questions, type them on the typewriter, and bureaucratically record: refused to answer. Sometimes I objected, saying: “Anatoly Alexandrovich, I refused to answer not just this question but to take part in the investigation at all. Please do note that in the protocol.” He’d reply: “Yes, yes, if that’s what you want, we’ll note it.” Once every ten interrogations or so I would write, referencing my initial Moscow statement: for such and such reasons, I refuse to participate in the investigation. That’s all. But Istomin didn’t avoid conversation; he initiated it very energetically. And why not chat? I felt the same way — that it was nothing. Maybe it was psychological…
Vladimir Tolts: To finish the story of Istomin, did you ever meet him again in your life after your prison term? Do you know how his life turned out?
Viktor Shmyrov, organizer of the Perm-36 camp festival
Sergei Kovalev: I think there’s how it actually turned out, and how he presents it. Together with Viktor Alexandrovich Shmyrov, we once visited Istomin in Perm.
Vladimir Tolts: Wait! I need to explain again. Viktor Alexandrovich Shmyrov is a historian, the director general of the Memorial Museum of the History of Political Repressions “Perm-36,” the “father” of the wonderful annual forum “Pilorama” held there, which draws guests from many countries — artists, political and public figures, former political prisoners… Now tell us about Istomin.
Sergei Kovalev: He’s a local, he returned from Primorye. After the conclusion of my investigation, he didn’t work long in Perm, and then he got a promotion…
Vladimir Tolts: How did he end up in your case? Was he seconded to Moscow?
Dissidents Viktor Krasin and Pyotr Yakir
Sergei Kovalev: No, to Vilnius. He was seconded to Moscow for the Yakir and Krasin case and he took part in that case. And later, when I was arrested, he was sent to Vilnius. As I understand it, he was actually the real head of that investigative team, not at all the Lithuanian lieutenant colonel whose name I’ve forgotten. When, on the initiative of Viktor Alexandrovich Shmyrov, we met with Istomin — Shmyrov had met Istomin before me — Istomin showed interest and said that it had been a very important case for him, that the case had played a significant role in his subsequent career. And that when he left for the Primorye, for Vladivostok, he held the rank of major in Vilnius. Once, he came to see me in Kuchino, already a lieutenant colonel. He went to Vladivostok as a lieutenant colonel, but into a colonel’s post—he was appointed there as head of the investigative department. Anatoly Alexandrovich Istomin explained it this way: he was deeply impressed by our conversations, open and frank conversations, when it wasn’t a matter of testimony, factual testimony in the case, but rather of assessments of the situation, politics, and so on. That he was deeply struck by this intelligent stance of the person under investigation, his openness and even goodwill, and that he began looking for a place where he would be guaranteed never to have to deal with cases of this kind again, that the Yakir and Krasin case, and then Kovalev’s, were more than enough for him to wish never again to take part in such cases. He claimed that Kovalev had in some way opened his eyes. Fine — that’s cunning; he explained to Viktor Alexandrovich Shmyrov and me that, supposedly, he hid away in the Far East so as not to take part in such cases anymore. But that was pure nonsense, because not far from Vladivostok is Nakhodka, and there you have the “Pentecostals.” That center of Pentecostalism. They are lovely, naïve people. And there were political cases galore there. I simply cannot imagine that the head of the investigative department, Anatoly Alexandrovich Istomin, steered clear of those cases. He’s fibbing.
Boris Perchatkin in Moscow before the conference
Vladimir Tolts: Well, it happens! Who is without sin? Here, to conclude the broadcast (you’ll hear Sergei Kovalev more than once), is the promised harsh truth of an operational document. Decide for yourselves which is more beautiful — the lie of a retired Chekist pouring it on to his former defendant, who has become a figure of federal stature, or this Chekist truth?
“In order to continue the in‑cell cultivation of the arrested S.A. Kovalev, we have, in Prison No. 1 of the Corrections Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Lithuanian SSR, selected from among the convicts the agent Sedunov Alexander Savelyevich, born 1927, native of the town of Lazdiyai, secondary education, who on 25 April 1975 was sentenced by the Lazdiyai District People’s Court under part 2 of Article 151 of the Criminal Code of the Lithuanian SSR to three years’ deprivation of freedom. Sedunov has been convicted four times and previously worked in the state security organs. As an agent he is assessed positively. He has given his consent to be held in the special isolation cell of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR and to assist us in the cultivation of arrestees. A cover story for Sedunov will be worked out separately after his transfer to the special cell. Reporting the above, I request your permission for the transfer of Sedunov to the special cell and his use in the cultivation of the arrested Kovalev. Head of the Investigation Department of the KGB under the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR, Colonel Kisminas. 11 May 1975.”
“Agreed. Major-General Petkiavichus.”
Radio Liberty © 2012 RFE/RL, Inc.
https://www.svoboda.org/content/transcript/24717637.html
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