The families the Russians won’t let out

Press, 27 August 1979, Page 1

The families the Russians won’t let out

NZPA-AP Moscow Sitting in a grounded Aeroflot jetliner at New York, the Russian ballerina Lyudmilla Vlasova faced a hard fact of Soviet life — returning to the Soviet Union could well mean she would never again be allowed to leave the country. Whatever her own desires, the defection of her dancer-husband, Alexander Godunov, in itself probably will prevent her from any future travel abroad with or without the Bolshoi Ballet troupe. This has happened repeatedly to families who have had a defecting member. “We do not let out the families of defectors,” authorities have told Rosa Ferdman, a sister of the ballet dancer, Rudolph Nureyev, who defected in 1961. “You will never be let go in revenge for Viktor Korchnoi’s crime (of defecting)” the wife of the chess champion quoted the authorities as telling her. “You will never see your husband again,” Lud-

milla Agapova, the wife of a seaman who jumped ship in Sweden, was told. In spite of the refusals, these and other relatives of defectors keep applying over the years for visas to go abroad. In a telephone interview, Mrs Ferdman, who has been trying for 15 years to visit Nureyev, said she had gathered new paperwork and had applied once more for permission to file a formal petition for a trip abroad. “I still hope. I think one must hope,” she said. “Other people travel abroad to visit friends. Why not me?” Mrs Ferdman, aged 48, a kindergarten teacher in Leningrad, hopes to visit the West with her daughter, Gyuzel, aged 18, and Nureyev’s mother, Farida, aged 75. In another case, a Soviet diplomat’s defection was followed by his wife’s death. When Arkady Shevchenko, a Soviet official at the United Nations headquarters in New York, defected in April, 1978, his family re-

turned to Moscow. Shortly afterwards, his wife Leoagina, aged 49, was found dead from an overdose of sleeping pills. Shevchenko’s son Gennady, then aged 24, was abruptly called home from Geneva where he was starting a diplomatic career. After‘his mother’s death he told a reporter, “I do not like Americans

and 1 do not like your country.”

The ban on travel also applies to citizens the authorities think might defect, including Godunov himself, who for five yea. had been refused permission to travel abroad with the Bolshoi Ballet His last trip abroad in 1974 was also to the United States when he is said to I ze been approached by Americans eager to persuade him to stay. A frequent partner of Godunov’s, the great ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, said in an interview that she herself was forbidden to travel for six years, “at the high point in my powers, an-l in my full flower.” Ordinary citizens are affected too. It is said that young single women rarely receive tourist visas because they are considered susceptible to the temptation to defect. It is rare for a married couple or for parents with children to travel together, without lea 'ing some family members behind.

Defection, or, “refusal to retu.n from abroad,” is considered high treason under Soviet law and is punishable by death. The families of defectors, both famous people such as Nureyev ant. others whose cases do not draw international attention, are also subjected to various forms of harassment K.n.B. security men

occasionally call on utem for questioning. Neighbours sometimes taunt them, saying things like, “Why didn’t you go too?*’

In the case of Nureyev's family, his niece Gyuzel, who has just finished high school, has been prevented from pursuing a dancing career, her mother said, and now has no idea what career to study for. Mrs Ferdman said she herself had been passed over for pr 'motion and could never be sure whether she was being punished for her brother’s, “crime.” Korchnoi’s wife, Bela says her son Igor, aged 20, has refused official demands that he denounce his father publicly and is nov hiding from the police on a charge of draft evasion. “Our life here is absolutely unendurable,” she said earlier this year. Mrs Agapova, the sea* man’s wife, has chosen to publicise her desire to emigrate as loudly as possible. She has gone so far as to attempt an escape in a small airplane, and to stab herself in protest at the Moscow passport office.