Krytskyi, Eduard Oleksandrovych

KRYTSKYI, EDUARD OLEKSANDROVYCH (b. March 21, 1940, in the city of Balei, Chita oblast, Russia – d. November 13, 2010, in the city of Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk oblast).
A worker, and prisoner of Soviet prisons and camps (1980–1989).
He worked on fishing fleet vessels and later as a driver at the Southern Mining and Processing Plant in the city of Kryvyi Rih. He attempted to create a chapter of an independent trade union at the plant. On May 1, 1980, in Kryvyi Rih, Krytskyi joined the official holiday demonstration with a poster that read, “Independence for trade unions from the CPSU, meat for the workers!” For this, he was sentenced to 3 years in a standard-regime camp under Article 206, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (“malicious hooliganism”). For helping to make the poster and photographing Krytskyi during the demonstration, his brother, Borys Vasylyovych Chereshenko, was sentenced to 2 years in the camps under the same article.
In 1983, just 4 days before the end of his term, Krytskyi was arrested in the camp and sentenced to another 3 years, this time in a strict-regime camp, under Article 187-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (“Dissemination of deliberately false fabrications that defame the Soviet state and social system”). The charges included, among other things, “slander against Soviet reality” in conversations with colony administrators and fellow prisoners. For protesting the arbitrariness of the camp authorities, Krytskyi was constantly placed in the SHIZO (shtrafnoy izolyator, or punishment cell) and the PKT (pomeshcheniye kamernogo tipa, or cell-type room). In May 1985, he received another 5 years in a strict-regime camp under Article 183-3, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR (“malicious violation of the detention regime”). Krytskyi was charged with, among other things, “illegally sending complaints of a slanderous nature.” Krytskyi served his first two sentences in camps in Simferopol, in the Kherson (Corrective Labor Colony YUZ-17/7) and Poltava (Corrective Labor Colony-69) oblasts. During his last term, he was repeatedly transferred from one camp to another across the entire territory of the USSR. He was imprisoned, among other places, in a prison in Grodno (Belarus), and in camps in Krasnovodsk (Turkmenistan, Corrective Labor Colony YUZ-25/2) and Goris (Armenia, Corrective Labor Colony UT-150/3). He was subjected to constant pressure and provocations by the camp administrations.
He was rehabilitated and released early in 1989.
Bibliography:
Borys Zakharov. Narys istoriyi dysydentskoho rukhu v Ukrayini (1956–1987) [An Outline of the History of the Dissident Movement in Ukraine (1956–1987)] / – Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. – Kharkiv: Folio, 2003. – P. 56. http://files.ukraine.ck.ua/Ukrayinika/pd
“Materialy samizdata” [Samizdat Materials], No. 34, 1984, http://www.osaarchivum.org/files/fa/300-85-9-13.htm
The journal “Glasnost,” Moscow, 1987, autumn.

This profile was compiled by Leonid Izrailevich Milyavskyi, October 2010.