Volodymyr Andreychykov

VOLODYMYR ANDREYCHYKOV (b. 1964 in Omsk Oblast, Russia – d. 1995 in Simferopol).
Attempted to escape from the USSR. Executed.
Volodymyr was the fourth child in the family. Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Crimea and settled in the village of Vilino, Bakhchysarai Raion.
In 1980, for an attempt to leave the USSR, Andreychykov was arrested and sentenced to 3 years in the camps. He was released in 1983.
After a conflict with the local police chief, he was arrested on fabricated criminal charges and in December 1983 was sentenced to 5 years in the camps. After his release in 1988, he sent a statement to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR renouncing his Soviet citizenship.
On June 22, 1988, Andreychykov held the first and only anti-Soviet demonstration in the history of Sevastopol. At home, Volodymyr sewed a white cape with the slogan “Death to Communism!,” put it on, and in this attire, demonstratively headed towards Sapun Ridge, where the World War II Memorial Complex is located. He told passers-by that he hated the Soviet government and that today was a holiday for him—the day the war began—and that Hitler was better than the communists. Near the Triumphal Arch, he was detained by policemen and KGB operatives and taken to the Nakhimovsky District Department of Internal Affairs of Sevastopol. During interrogation, the brave man stated that he hated the Soviet government and wanted to express his protest against the moral terror he had been subjected to since birth in this country.
A month after his arrest, Andreychykov was sent for an examination at the Sevastopol Psychiatric Hospital. There, he unexpectedly had an appendicitis attack. Shortly after the surgery, while under guard at Sevastopol City Hospital No. 1, with his scar not yet healed, Andreychykov escaped. He was in hiding for two months. To get money for his escape from the USSR, he broke into a store in his home village of Vilino, cracked a safe, and stole 4,000 rubles. He was arrested the same day.
On September 13, 1988, Andreychykov was brought to Vilino for a crime scene reenactment. There, he made a daring escape from custody. On September 20, he was caught by the local police officer, Vasily Kulynyak, who beat Andreychykov severely during interrogation and tormented him. In his testimony, Andreychykov repeatedly told investigators that he had one goal: to leave the Soviet Union, and he was ready to do anything if the opportunity arose.
In February 1989, Andreychykov was sentenced by the Nakhimovsky District Court of Sevastopol to 6 years in a strict-regime camp. He served his sentence in the Vinnytsia zone IV 30-86. In the camp, he befriended Stanislav Girzheu (b. 1967). Girzheu was in the camp from 1989 to 1991 on a criminal charge. In the zone, the friends decided to create an underground anti-communist combat group and, after their release, to obtain weapons in a fight and kill communists and KGB agents. Girzheu was released 3 years earlier than Andreychykov, but continued to correspond with him and met him at the gates of the zone on the day of his release.
In the camp, Andreychykov engaged in self-education and wrote good poems; here is one of them: “Payback. I have forgotten what love is, and under the moonlit city sky I uttered so many sworn words, that I darken when I remember them. And one day, pressed against a wall by the ugliness that follows me, alone, I will cry out in my sleep and wake up, and leave, leave... Late at night, the door will open, it will be a joyless moment. At the threshold I will stand, like a beast, that wanted warmth and comfort. She will turn pale and say: go away! Our friendship is now behind us! I mean nothing to myself! Go away! Don’t look at me crying! And again along the forest road, where weddings once flew by, restless, gloomy, nocturnal, I will anxiously walk away into the blizzard.”
Andreychykov was released in April 1994. Together with Stas Girzheu, he came to Crimea. He kept the oath he had made in the zone and began to take revenge on the communists and KGB agents who had become successful businessmen in the now-independent Ukraine. In September–October 1994, the friends carried out a series of armed raids on the homes of former party officials. As a result of the raids, 5 people were killed. The culmination of their activities was a raid in the village of Vilino on the house of the police officer Kulynyak, who had arrested Andreychykov in 1988. The officer himself and almost all of his family members were demonstratively killed on October 10, 1994.
The case received wide publicity. All police forces were deployed to capture Andreychykov and Girzheu. The Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Chernyshov, arrived from Kyiv. On October 14, 1994, they were “located.” In Sevastopol, Berkut officers blew open the door of Andreychykov’s sister’s apartment with a charge and captured him and Girzheu while they were sleeping. They were taken to the Sevastopol MVD headquarters and were simply beaten to death with kicks. The head of the Sevastopol MVD, General Beloborodov, who saw this, tried to stop the beating, but Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs Chernyshov, who was standing nearby, led him away.
After the beating, Andreychykov ended up in intensive care, and Stas Girzheu’s kidneys were beaten out. During the investigation and trial, Andreychykov stated that he was avenging himself on the criminal functionaries of the Soviet government and was satisfied with his actions, had no regrets, and had achieved his goal.
In the Simferopol pre-trial detention center, Andreychykov and Girzheu were constantly beaten by the guards. In 1995, the Supreme Court of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea sentenced Andreychykov and his friend to be shot. The sentence was carried out the same year.
Author: Oleg Sofianyk.
May 2013