Poet allowed to leave U.S.S.R

Press, 19 December 1986, Page 31

Poet allowed to leave U.S.S.R

NZPA-Reuter Moscow The Soviet poet, Irina Ratushinskaya, released from prison in October, said she had been given permission to leave the Soviet Union. Miss Ratushinskaya, aged 32, told Reuters: “The authorities telephoned me to say our application had been positively assessed, which means we can leave the country.”

She said she and her husband, Igor Geraschenko, planned to pick up their exit visas and leave for Britain in the next few days, but added that they had not renounced their Soviet citizenship and hoped to return.

Miss Ratushinskaya was released from a Kiev prison on October 9 after being sentenced in April, 1983, to seven years’ labour camp and five years internal exile for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.” Miss Ratushinskaya, considered by Western critics and Soviet emigre writers to be one of the most talented modern poets, said she planned to receive medical treatment for bronchitis and heart problems.

Speaking by telephone from her home in Kiev soon ■ after she was told she could leave, Miss Ratushinskaya said: “We can and must defend human rights by keeping our Soviet citizenship. We intend to visit all the countries we have received invitations from, and then return.

“It will be very difficult to leave the country and very difficult to return. I don’t know if they will let me.”

Asked about her health, which deteriorated during her term in prison, Miss Ratushinskaya said: “I am

ill but it won’t prevent us leaving.” Miss Ratushinskaya said last month that Soviet authorities had refused to examine her application to go to Britain on the grounds that an invitation she and her husband had received was not valid. It was not clear why the authorities had given them permission now but Miss Ratushinskaya said: “I have no emotion. I am in a state of shock, I have waited to leave for so long. All my feelings are confused.” She said her immediate aim was to regain her health in Britain and then visit countries which had also issued her invitations for medical treatment. These included the United States, Australia, West Germany, Norway, Sweden, France and Italy