VYNNYCHUK, PETRO MYKOLAYOVYCH

(Village of Rosokhach, April 2, 2000, in the home of Mykola Marmus, also present were Volodymyr Marmus and Mykola Slobodyan)

and his father, Mykola VYNNYCHUK

(April 3, in his home, present were Petro Vynnychuk, Mykola Marmus, and Mykola Slobodyan)

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P. Vynnychuk: I am Petro Mykolayovych Vynnychuk, born August 16, 1954. In 1970, I completed the 8th grade in Rosokhach. I worked in a road crew for about a year. And before my arrest, I worked as a laborer at the brick factory here in Rosokhach.

At home, we always celebrated church holidays, especially St. Nicholas Day, because my father’s name is Mykola. At home during the holidays, I would hear them sing insurgent songs—OUN songs, as they were called back then. During that struggle, the boys composed many songs and sang them.

In his youth, my father took some part in the liberation struggle. He helped with whatever was needed: he passed on information, carried messages, and when necessary, he even participated in armed actions, from what I know from him directly. From our village, there was a captain, Ivan Kulchytsky, whose pseudonym was “Sych” [The Owl]. He died somewhere in Sadky. He was often here in Rosokhach with his company, in these forests of ours. I heard all about it. So I no longer believed the communist propaganda about the UPA that was spread among the youth.

After school, I met up with the older boys: the Marmus brothers—Volodymyr and Mykola, Slobodyan, and others. These boys understood that that time had passed, that we could no longer fight Bolshevism with the same methods. Volodymyr began to suggest to me that we should put up leaflets, distribute samvydav, and get some equipment to print things. Since I took it all in well, he was, you could say, a guide for me in this matter; he opened my eyes to how the struggle should be waged. That’s how my worldview was formed.

Volodymyr tells me that we need to create an organization and commemorate the 55th anniversary of Ukraine's independence. We needed to hang leaflets and Ukrainian flags in Chortkiv to raise people's spirits a little. Because, he says, I can see for myself that even people who were true patriots have grown weak. They are losing faith—a long time has passed, and there’s been no progress. So we need, he says, to give people some spirit, so they see that not all is lost—there are still people who are thinking. But we have to do it underground, so the KGB agents can’t identify those people.

In 1972—which was my draft year—Volodymyr says: for this to look serious for us as an organization, just like the OUN, like the UPA, for you to be faithful to your Ukraine—you must take an oath. It's not the kind of oath you should be afraid of—you just solemnly give your word to your friends, and you take on the duty of being a steadfast person, so that even if you fall into the enemy's hands, you won't betray your friends.

Some might think that the oath was a way to intimidate, to make someone afraid. We had nothing of the sort. The oath was taken so that you would truly feel like you were in the OUN or the UPA. And to some extent, that's how we felt.

Sometime in November* (*the 5th. – V.O.), I, Volodymyr Marmus, Petro Vitiv, and Volodymyr Senkiv decided to take the oath. We took two candles, an icon of the Most Pure Virgin Mary, a cross, and something else. The cross—I remember it well, Volodymyr Senkiv even kept it. We went to a clearing in the forest and took the oath. It was a place where OUN members used to be often. There was a kryyivka nearby. We decided to take the oath just like the OUN-UPA, to feel like the same kind of people. Volodymyr read the text by candlelight, while the three of us knelt. True, we didn’t have a flag, because it wasn't easy to get the material to sew a Ukrainian flag. The four of us took the oath.

Right then, we also swore that we would go into the village—it was just before the October Revolution celebrations, and they had hung up four or so flags in the village—and we would take those flags from them, so they wouldn’t be so proud. We went through the village and collected all the red flags. That was our first action.

After that, our second action was to avenge the grave mound that had been symbolically built here by the people in honor of the Sich Riflemen. Our party organizers here—well, as I understand it, the order came from the district—they brought in a military bulldozer and destroyed the mound. So we told ourselves that we had to get revenge for that—to destroy the monument to the “warrior-liberators,” as they called this warrior-invader who brought enslavement to Ukrainian land, not freedom. It was damaged right before their holidays—which was a terrible thing for them. Volodymyr Senkiv and Petro Vitiv did it—they went and damaged the monument. They [the authorities] came there with the Pioneers, they look, and it's not a monument, but a freak! They started running around, not knowing what to do. It was cast from concrete, so it wasn't easy to damage. They had to use an axe—they knocked off the nose, smashed the helmet... In short, they made a freak out of him—let them look at their “liberator.” Some people might not have understood us at first, but later they understood correctly.

These were our first actions that we carried out in the village. But Volodymyr said, “Boys, these are trivial things. We have to do something so that people’s spirits are truly revived.” Because those village authorities hushed it all up, they quietly patched up the head [of the statue], and didn’t even report anywhere that the flags had disappeared, even though they were obligated to. But the head of the village council was a man who sympathized a bit with the OUN members and was perhaps afraid himself. You know, it wasn't a lot of money, they could have more flags sewn, and it was as if nothing had happened. And later, during the investigation, the KGB agents pressured us, saying: “Wasn't it he who put you up to this, since he reported it so late? We should have found you back when you carried out your first action.”

Preparations began for Independence Day. Volodymyr says, “For now, there are four of us, but by then, if needed, there will be 8 or 9. The boys are there, they’ve already been chosen, so we'll do this.” He says we need to prepare the paper. I bought a roll of paper myself at our store two months before. People were buying tons of that paper, so the salesclerks couldn't have remembered that I came in and bought paper. So there would be no suspicion, Volodymyr says, that you bought it. As for the flags, he found blue material somewhere, but the yellow—that was a big problem. I don't know if he found it in Lviv or somewhere else. He even said that we might not be able to hang the flags because there was no yellow material anywhere. He says, “Our state launches satellites into space, but it can't manage to produce yellow fabric.” That's how much fear it held for them.

Volodymyr Senkiv left our ranks—he went into the army. We were born in the same year, but they delayed me for some reason, gave me a deferment, so I didn't go in the fall; I was supposed to be drafted in April of the next year. Then Mykola Marmus and Andriy Kravets took the oath. They were already de facto members of the organization before that, but membership was counted from the time of the oath. I don't remember where everyone was sworn in, but I was there once when three or four were.* *(According to the verdict, Mykola Marmus, Andriy Kravets, Mykola Slobodyan, and Mykola Lysy took the oath on January 14, 1973, in Kravets's house. – V.O.). The text of the oath was written by Volodymyr Marmus.

One time we went to Chortkiv, chose the places where we would hang the flags and leaflets—places that were crowded and where there were more young people. The emphasis was on the youth, so they would understand what we needed to fight for.

We were already prepared, and then Volodymyr said there was one more problem. We ask, what is it? “Sapelyak is following me around, saying: ‘I feel like you’re preparing something, you want to do something, and you’re not telling me.’ We could have trouble if we do this without him. He might go around talking: ‘Our boys did such-and-such in Chortkiv!..’ So let’s try to bring him in: he’ll take the oath, maybe that will stop him, he’ll be more conspiratorial, and maybe it will be safer for us.” What can I say? I myself was against it, and the other boys were against it, but at Volodymyr's request, we finally agreed. We say, “Alright, fine, we’ll take him into our organization.”

Then on January 20, 1973, we all gathered in his summer kitchen—there were 7 or 8 of us. We lit candles before the icon, and he took the oath, just as each of us had, that he would be faithful to the organization and maintain secrecy.

I was already joining the conversation there, saying that he was supposed to be in Chortkiv at such-and-such a time, because we knew the way and it would take us about 40 or 50 minutes to walk to Chortkiv. By that time, he was supposed to be near the ‘Myr’ cinema.

Mykola Marmus went with Petro Vitiv to look for him—he was nowhere to be found. They came back to us—he wasn't there. We milled around for about an hour. Volodymyr says, “We need to do this as quickly as possible. Before people come out of the cinema, they should already see and read it, we shouldn't be doing it at the moment when a lot of young people are walking by. It's dangerous for us, and it gets in the way, because all sorts of people are around.” Well, I don't know where they met Stepan. As far as I remember, Volodymyr scolded him for it right there on the spot.

We went to paste the leaflets. We started at the Ukrainian school No. 4, from the top of the hill downwards. We had already hung a flag and a couple of leaflets on the pedagogical college and were on our way back when we saw a “bobyck” speed past near the military commissariat. Volodymyr says that “bobyck” didn't fly by with its headlights on for no reason; it shouldn't be driving like that at night. And it was a Sunday, too. He says, someone must have already noticed a leaflet, there's already a stir in the city. Then we returned home the same way. But before we were supposed to head back, Volodymyr gave, you could say, an order to Sapelyak: “When you get to Lviv, don't be the first one to tell anyone about this. At all, as if you knew nothing. Don't draw any suspicion to yourself, don't show you're worried.” On that note we parted—we went home, and Sapelyak went to Lviv. We know he arrived without any trouble—no one stopped him anywhere. There were no traces leading to him.

Some time later, I went to Chortkiv to see a relative; he worked as a dental technician. Volodymyr says, “When you go, walk around and listen to what people are talking about.” I went into a dive bar there, where some criminals, as I understood it, were sitting at a table, because they were mostly speaking Russian. They were saying: “Well, the Chekists are giving us hell! They beat me so badly recently I could barely walk—they're asking if we know who might have hung up leaflets or flags.” And as they spoke, they were looking around on all sides, to see if anyone was there.

I went to my relative, he worked in the polyclinic, and almost the whole town gathered there—even the bosses brought their wives to have their teeth treated, because he was a very good specialist. So he knew almost the whole story of this affair. They [the authorities] had misjudged the time we started hanging the leaflets by half an hour or so. That relative (he's deceased now) said with admiration: “Well, the boys—good for them, they did it! It must have been students from somewhere who came to our town and pulled off such an action.” I thought: eh, they rate us highly—as if we were from a university or something. Well, I thought, our cause was not in vain. It means it was worth taking the risk and doing this.

Somehow Mykola Marmus was working late and getting home later, and we were at Volodymyr's. He told us that Sapelyak had been summoned in Lviv. Volodymyr asked why he would have been summoned. He said they were asking him this and that. But he didn't tell the truth about why he was summoned. He was summoned because when he arrived in Lviv, where he worked as a lab assistant, he told the students: “You consider Lviv such a patriotic city, but it's so quiet here. And in our Chortkiv, there are flags and leaflets hanging everywhere.” Those students testified at the trial and said all of this—who told them and when. It was through his loose tongue that the KGB got to him.

M. Marmus: They even said exactly where the flags had been hung.

P. Vynnychuk: And even at which spots—near the district committee, at the forestry department, at the indoor market... Where did such information come from? You'd have to be a complete idiot not to realize that this man must have been there! So he led them to himself—he simply didn't keep his word of the oath. And people who don't keep their word—you understand what that means... And that was the result—nine of us suffered because of a few words, when a man doesn't know how to keep a secret. And the oath didn't help him.

We wanted to talk to him, but he had run off to his uncle's somewhere. So Volodymyr and I—Volodymyr even lifted me up in his arms to the window, and I peeked in to see if he was in his uncle's house. Indeed, he was sitting at the table with his uncle. I got down and said: “We’re not going to get him—if he’s avoiding us, then we're probably in some danger.” Volodymyr says, “Well, what can we do—let's go home, we're not going to watch him all night. Maybe he'll come back to my place.” But he didn't come back to Volodymyr's, and after a while, as we know, two cars rushed to his place...

At first, Sapelyak started telling them that he had done it all himself, but they didn't believe him. Then he named Volodymyr, that it was the two of them. The investigator says: “Well, how could the two of you have climbed up there and done all that in such a short time—it doesn't add up.” They tell him that near the pedagogical college, a guard saw about six or seven of you milling about. There was some kind of military warehouse there. The guard even approached us, so we pretended to be drunk, and in the meantime the boys were pasting slogans and hanging the flag. We thought, he might take a closer look, and we didn't want him to go and make a call, because everything there was lit up—it wasn't in the dark.

And then we heard about Sapelyak's arrest. We gathered and wondered: “What are we going to do? Maybe we should leave town?” But then we decided against it, figuring that such a move wouldn't do us any good. We decided to see what would come of it. And so it happened—soon they took Volodymyr Marmus, and about a month later Mykola Slobodyan, and then Mykola Lysy. There were four of us left. Mykola Marmus says that when he goes to work or comes back, he's constantly being followed, so he can't even approach anyone who might be able to say something.

A fellow villager of ours came to Rosokhach, one who lived somewhere near Lviv and had been convicted before—what was his name?—Yaroslav Matsyshyn. He had served a long sentence for participating in the insurgent movement. He wanted to talk with Mykola Marmus, and I don't even know how they managed to speak—whether they hid far away while those “tails” were running after them. So it was very difficult.

April is approaching. I passed the draft board medical exam—they found me healthy, “fit for service,” as they wrote in Russian, because they wrote almost nothing in Ukrainian. “Wait for your notice,” was the conversation. I tell the boys. The boys say: “Maybe you'll go to the army and just stay there.”

Where I lived, on the street behind the tavern, if someone's light was on late at night, the bulb would end up broken or something. The dog was also scared and barking. But the scary thing was—a black "Volga" was constantly dropping off a landing party of KGB agents here at the turn by the Catholic church. They were in tarpaulin boots. And at my house, the dogs were also quite vicious, so my father came out a few times with a rifle, because, he said, either thieves or someone was creeping around—the corn stalks were rustling everywhere, the dog was chasing them there. But I told my father: “They’re watching me. I know who it is, just leave them be.” Well, my father says, if that's the case, then we have to...

This went on until April 11. I remember it was early, just getting light, four or five in the morning. I hear a knock on the door. My father got up, went to the door, and asked who it was. “Open up, KGB.” My father opened the door—and Lieutenant Colonel Bidyovka immediately burst into the house. I thought he expected to see some kind of beast or something—the way he was looking. But it was just a boy—I was eighteen and a half or a little more. “So this is the son?” My father says: “Well, I only have one son—this is mine.” “Are you Petro Vynnychuk?” I say, “I am.” “Get up.” I got up, they brought in witnesses—there were four of them in the house in total. They had two witnesses, they brought one from the Borshchiv district somewhere. Where they found them at that hour, I never understood. With two witnesses present: “Read the prosecutor's warrant.”

V. Ovsiyenko: For a search or for an arrest?

P. Vynnychuk: No, no, for a search. I remember perfectly that I took it in my hands—the warrant was written in Russian. I refused to read it, I said: “I can't read Russian.” Bidyovka took note of this: “Look at him, he’s already... What, they didn't teach Russian in your village?” “They did, but my language is Ukrainian, I know how to read it, but I don't understand the meaning of what I would be reading. So you'd better do it.” He then puts on his glasses, looking displeased, shakes his head and begins to read: whether I have anti-Soviet literature, weapons—that was the first question. My father immediately said that there was a weapon—a hunting rifle, because he was a hunter. He says: “No, I mean pistols and such.” “No, we don't have anything like that.” “Well, if you don't—we'll look for it, because it has become clear to us that you have such things—anti-Soviet literature, weapons.” My father says: “If that's the case, then please, search.”

And they began the search. They even used flashlights in the attic, because it was dark there. There they found my mother's papers from when she studied at a Polish gymnasium and had good grades. They asked where this was from, and my mother told them that we had Polish rule here, just like we have Russian rule now. He corrected her, saying that it's not Russian—it's Ukrainian rule we have now.

They conducted the search—found nothing. Those witnesses signed, and my father, I think, signed, and my mother. Then Bidyovka says to me: “You'll come with us.” “Why should I go with you? You didn't find any anti-Soviet literature, no weapons, nothing forbidden.” “Well, we need to clarify something, you'll come with us for 2-3 days.” To my father: “Here's the address, because he's going to Ternopil. So that you don't go looking for him anywhere here in Chortkiv—we're taking him to Ternopil. You can contact us there, but in two or three days he should be home.”

They brought me straight to Chortkiv, and took me to some cell on the first floor. True, two men immediately sat down with me. One—I don't know who he was—says: “Do you even know what they brought you here for?” “How should I know? They just came, took me, but for what exactly? They were looking for anti-Soviet literature—they didn't find any, but they took me anyway.” “That's alright, if they didn't find anything, they'll let you go.” I say: “That's what I think too, that's how it should be—if you're looking for one thing and don't find it, then the man is innocent.” We sat for about an hour, maybe an hour and a half. I understood that they were taking a break between cars, because they took four of us that day.* *(On April 11, 1973, Mykola Marmus, Andriy Kravets, and Petro Vitiv were also arrested. – V.O.) In that time, they managed to bring everyone in—that’s what I figured.

They brought me to the Ternopil KGB. This was the old KGB building, here, near the railway station. Nearby on the left side is the new post office. I just lifted my head—the post office building is maybe four stories high—and it was full of young girls and boys everywhere, looking out. One KGB agent even said to another: “Go on, call them and tell them to close the windows with curtains.” This was so no one would look in from the yard. I already saw that there were two cars in front of me, or maybe even three.

V. Ovsiyenko: What kind of car did they bring you in, a “voronok”?

P. Vynnychuk: No, no, a “GAZik.” I remember that for sure, because there was a “Volga” there too. Someone was being taken in the “Volga.”

Right away, a thorough search. But before the search, Bidyovka took me to his office, opened his safe, and pulled out the charges against me: “Here, read.” It said that on January 22, 1973...

Remark: He says: “To make things easier, just confess your guilt right away.”

P. Vynnychuk: He immediately presented me with the accusation: “Here, familiarize yourself with this, so you don't waste our time, so you understand that we already know everything about you, about what you did.” I say: “What have you printed there, I don’t know the first thing about it.” “Read, read.” I read it. Indeed, it describes everything exactly as it happened. I say: “I didn't do this. Some person wrote this... If he did it, let him answer for it. But I didn't do it and I won't sign.” “Is that so?” “Yes.” “Then I'll show you.” With one press of a button, a beefy guard comes in. He must have thought I'd get scared: I'm just a boy, and this bull of a man comes in, with a bald head—there was an old man like that there... And he was some kind of easterner, by the way he talked. He didn't look like a kind-hearted man. Well, they're leading me away. I think, now he's probably going to break my bones, this bone-breaker—that was my thought. They led me down the stairs from the top floor to the basement, straight into a cell, to the duty room, they took my fingerprints for the case file* *(Dactyloscopy. – V.O.). That's it, they're processing me, I understood one hundred percent that this was it. I hear: “Put him in the third cell!”—I seem to recall that I was in the third one.

I arrive in the third cell—a young lad is already sitting there. We got acquainted, and in a few words he told me he was from Zalishchyky. He introduced himself as Serhiy Chub. He started telling me tall tales. He says: “What did they get you for?” I say: “I have no idea what for, they grabbed me on the sidewalk, supposedly for anti-Soviet activity, I was supposed to have some book, but I have no idea.” He says: “Then they won't keep you here long, they should let you go.” I say: “Yes, I think so too.”

I sat with him for one day, a second day. I notice, this Serhiy of mine is starting to get very curious. He starts telling me how they had a hideout, some weapons, forbidden books hidden away. I immediately understood what kind of man this was—he was simply a plant. They planted someone like that to get something out of me, so I would tell him something. I sat with him for about 4-5 days, until I said: “Serhiy, it seems to me that you're a stool pigeon.” I just told him that, in criminal slang. A day later, they took him away from me.

What I also want to say is—for ten or eleven days I didn't give any testimony, didn't sign anything, I said I was innocent and knew nothing. Then Bidyovka called the supervising prosecutor—I don't remember, was his name Ivanov, or what was it? He even threatened me: “I'll show you in court.” Because he was a Muscovite. He says: “And as for him and one other”—I now realize he meant Mykola Marmus—“they need to be taken to a psychiatric hospital to have their brains cleaned out.”

Bidyovka threatened me too. My father was just about to build a house, he was bringing in stone, materials. And you know how it is with us—it took ten years to gather materials for a small house. So he told me: “If you don't [confess]—we'll confiscate everything, take it all.” I say, if it exists, there are documents for it. As for the stone, it's not hard for my father to get a document from his office, since he worked there as a stonemason. But for the timber—well, no one had papers for that, that's clear. And that started to worry me a little. Since they showed me Sapelyak's testimony, I could see that he had described everything 100 percent as it was. That prosecutor simply told me: “Even if you're smart, you'll end up a fool.” And it's true, I thought, it’s probably better to admit guilt, because I won't get out of this, and they'll really make me... I was afraid of that. We listened to Radio Liberty, so we knew what they did to people: they turned healthy people into the mentally ill. So they were using this option on me. Then I signed that protocol. And I signed one more protocol, maybe you remember, that they have the right to use a weapon against you in case of an escape attempt. I also didn't want to sign that for a long time, even longer. I told him that you could shoot me just for crossing a threshold and say it was an escape attempt—and you'd have a signed document that I was informed.

So the investigation began. We were under investigation for about half a year or so, right, Volodya?

V. Marmus: Seven months. But it's interesting that Volodymyr Senkiv wasn't there for a long time. They brought him in right at the very end.* *(V. Senkiv was arrested on June 28, 1973. – V.O.).

P. Vynnychuk: They brought him for the trial.

Our life in the cell began. There was a time when I sat alone in the cell for three weeks. It was very hard to sit alone. Then, of course, they brought in an old stool pigeon. We exposed him later, Mykola Slobodyan helped with that. This stool pigeon was known in Chortkiv, from Mykola's cell. Mykola told me at the trial who that man with me was. Indeed, his surname was completely different. And his sentence—because they later brought his sentence to the cell while I was there, I read it—was that they found 10 dollars, gold coins, and a Colt pistol on him. That was his “political” sentence. But in reality, he was detained in Chortkiv for non-payment of alimony to his wife. He was a real deadbeat dad, but turned out to be such an experienced stool pigeon that they even sent him to cells in Ternopil, like to me, and maybe to others.

After they took the first stool pigeon away from me, I sat alone for about two weeks. And there was this incident... I can't remember it well... One morning it seemed to me that something had happened to me—I didn't understand what. It was as if I heard someone entering the cell in my sleep. And somehow it seemed that they might have done something to me. After that, in the morning, I was going to wash up—and suddenly such a weakness came over me that I couldn't stand on my feet. The corridor there isn't very wide, so I walked by bracing myself with my hands from one wall to the other, and the guard didn't even ask what was wrong with me. That means he knew what was wrong with me. And I couldn't see well. This happened once, and after that, it never happened to me again. It was something incomprehensible. As if in a dream, I heard the cell being locked after I started to come to my senses a little. I keep thinking that they did something to me, but what exactly, I can't say. But I was a young man, with a healthy body—and there was such a sudden collapse...

When the investigation ended, they started taking us to court. As I already said, we didn't argue with the KGB agents for long or try to confuse the case, so that they couldn't uncover all the leads. They succeeded because tongues do their work.

The trial began. We all met at the trial, we were very happy, we started hugging. In the “voronoks,” each of us was kept in a separate cubicle, so we hadn't seen each other for half a year. And here the judges were surprised, because they thought we would be at each other's throats or something, but on the contrary, whoever came in—we greeted them, hugged them.

V. Ovsiyenko: Were you all seated on one bench or what?

P. Vynnychuk: No, there were two benches. Three sat in front, and four behind. The trial was closed.

Out of that joy, we began to talk. A guard jumped on Mykola Slobodyan, because Mykola had said something. They put him in handcuffs: “We'll show you!” The head of the convoy really wanted to play the hero—he carried two pistols on both sides, had two holsters, showing how heavily armed he was. The convoy guards were Armenians. I would say that these guys were very conscientious, I can't say a bad word about them. They even treated us with some sympathy. But this senior convoy officer was very intimidating—whether he was a Muscovite or someone else, it's hard to say, until the judge stopped him later.

And my father told me that they were waiting on the road outside the courthouse. He says: “They bring you, the ‘voronok’ drives up so close it almost knocks down the door—it stops like that so we can't even see you getting out, what you look like, what's going on.” Well, for parents, that's the most important thing—they wanted to see us. My father says: “Two KGB agents approach and start chasing us away from there.” My father then says: “Why should we leave—this is my son, and I will stand here, why won't you let me into the courtroom to see our children?” My father even said that maybe you beat them up so badly that you're hiding them from us now, so we can't even see what you've done to them. I'm telling you, my father was not one to be scared, he knew how to deal with them. Later, he says, they started parking a little further from the door.

The trial ended. They gave me 4 years of strict regime and 3 years of exile. But I'll also say this: they announced to our parents that the verdict would be read the next day. They brought us to the court that afternoon. But the parents still didn't give up, they kept walking back and forth. Because you had to get there by train, the buses to Chortkiv weren't running at that hour. Well, someone stayed a little longer, and the others already wanted to go to the station. And the KGB building is right there, so even when they were walking down the street, sometimes we could hear them shouting: “Petro!” or “Volodymyr!” or “Mykola!” Because the cells were right by the sidewalk. Someone there said that the boys were being taken to the court in a “voronok”—so the parents came back. And they came into the courtroom, we saw them.

The convoy was tripled: there had been up to ten men, and now there were over twenty. I remember this by the candles, because the lights went out here and every soldier had a lit candle. It occurred to us that just as we took the oath by candlelight, so they read our punishment by candlelight. The KGB agents wanted to show us, see, we're judging you by candlelight. Well, they were mistaken in that, because our spirits didn't fall, but on the contrary, were lifted.

Then, after the trial, they brought Stepan Sapelyak to my cell.

V. Ovsiyenko: Were you alone or with someone?

P. Vynnychuk: I was sitting with that provocateur. They throw Sapelyak into my cell. We hugged, as is customary, as fellow villagers, according to custom. We started talking, and he began to squirm his way out of it. I didn't like any of it: why say that Lysy and Slobodyan were singing some songs somewhere in Chortkiv, that they were detained, and that's how, supposedly, they found us. I say: “Don't talk like that, because they gave me your interrogation protocol to read, you immediately pointed to all of us. And,” I say, “don't you ever say that again, so I don't hear you slandering the boys.” He restrained himself a little. I say: “Look, this is a very bad business, we're not saying anything to you, because you are suffering just like us—they gave you a sentence too. It is what it is, but be fair and don't say things like that anymore.” Well, this stool pigeon is listening to all of this—that's what he's there for between us.

They started trying to bend us this way and that. To make a long story short, Ruban arrived from Kyiv—perhaps, Mr. Vasyl, he is known to you?

V. Ovsiyenko: A huge face with a scar?

P. Vynnychuk: Yes, yes, a scar on his cheek and a tattoo on his arm—a rose, he used to be a sailor in Kyiv or something like that. A dark-haired man. This was a Kyiv recruiter, he recruited agents. Well, he probably dealt with all of us.

V. Ovsiyenko: He spoke with me too—on this very topic, and at the same time—in early 1974, after my trial, I was waiting for transport in the Kyiv KGB prison.

P. Vynnychuk: He starts telling me how young I am, how I can get out to freedom sooner and so on. I told him that I am not capable of such things. In short, we had a long conversation, he got nothing from me, because I was evasive. I didn't tell him to his face to get lost with his KGB, but simply—I don't know how to do such things, I can't do that... He talked with me, sees that it's not working out very well.

Palamarchuk or Palamarenko got involved. They say he was a Ternopil KGB agent. He talked to me so much that he finally says: “Well, alright, do you at least know how we found you?” I am telling this as if in a holy confession. I said: “Yes, I know how you found us.” “Well, how would you know?” I say: “How else, Stepan Sapelyak is sitting in the cell with me, he told me that you promised him you wouldn't prosecute him, and now you've jailed him.” And he says: “Well, that Stepan is a fool.” I don't know which of us was right, what he meant, but I understood it as me having told him the truth, that some conversation had taken place there. Even though he imagined himself to be so smart, it means I outsmarted him. I didn't actually need that confession, I simply said that it was clear to me anyway who was taken first and how the rest were taken—you don't need to be a great genius for that.

Palamarenko didn't succeed either. Then Hnyniuk summons me—the head of the Ternopil KGB directorate. This was just before we were transported, we left about three days later.

V. Marmus: They took us three days later.

P. Vynnychuk: Yes, you left sooner, and then we did. Because they summoned everyone. Sapelyak first, then me after Sapelyak, because we were from the same cell. And Hnyniuk is pushing the same line: “You knew how to paste leaflets in Chortkiv, but you don't know how to write for us, who and what.” I say: “Of course I don't know how to do such things.” He's sitting at a table like we are, and here are two—Stepanyan on one side, and another operative on the other. I don't know his last name, he didn't introduce himself. Because we all knew that Armenian, Stepanyan, he was an authorized KGB operative. And Hnyniuk is drilling me with his eyes, so I can't even squirm, because there’s one on this side, and another on that side. They were putting psychological pressure on me like that. For about half an hour. We didn't agree on anything, he sent me back to the cell. And this Hnyniuk also told me this: “If a KGB colonel tells you that you'll get out sooner, you don't believe me?” “Well, I believe you, but I don't know how to do what you want, I'm not capable of such a thing.” So he says: “Take him away.” And to Stepanyan: “Take him to your office, get a signed statement from him that if he divulges this secret, he will bear criminal responsibility.” I was young, so I wrote them that statement, that if I, so-and-so, divulge it, I will bear criminal responsibility. That's why when we were being transported—Mykola Slobodyan remembers me telling him: “Now I have to keep quiet, because those stool pigeons will report it and I'll be jailed again!” (Everyone laughs).

So, we were transported from Ternopil to Kyiv. I saw our capital city through the bars of a Stolypin car. There were soldiers in the corridor, dogs, they herd us like slaves.

They brought us to the first floor. The prison was probably built by Catherine the Great, the bones of our glorious Cossacks are probably paved there, Catherine probably built that prison for them. A shakedown started immediately. The guards held up hammers, saying that young “bandyory” [bandits] have arrived. One even said he'd smash all of us here with a hammer. Do you remember that, Mykola? And he even swung it: “Do you know how many of you I've transported from Western Ukraine? If only you knew!” That was the welcome we received right away. I thought to myself then: if it's like this in Ukraine, what must it be like in Russia?

Well, no matter—from Kyiv we were transported to Kharkiv. In Kharkiv, they put us in the same cell where the Marmus brothers, Senkiv, and Sapelyak had been before. A Kharkiv sectarian, Zdorovets, an invalid with a bad arm, was sitting there. He was very impulsive, very animatedly telling us that the brothers were here and everything was fine with them. We felt a little relieved, because we heard about our boys. And they had been moved on a week or 10 days before us.

From Kharkiv we went to Ruzayevka, that's already in Mordovia. In Ruzayevka, the local criminal inmates told us that if we go up from Ruzayevka, it's to the Urals, and if they take you down—you'll go to Mordovia, that's the junction. Indeed, they turned downwards, towards Mordovia. We pass Potma-1, Potma-2. These were all secret stations that weren't on any maps. They put us in cells, write on the doors that we are politicals—everything was divided there so that no stranger could get into the cell.

Three Latvians were sitting in the cell. Still from the war—SS or whatever that unit of theirs was called. Those old Latvians were very surprised and pleased that we, so young, ended up as political prisoners. I think two of them ended up with us in the 19th zone, in the settlement of Lesnoy, Tengushevsky district.

We arrive in the zone—snow is on the ground. I say: “Look how quickly winter has come—we just left Ternopil, it was still autumn there, and here it's already winter.” They changed our clothes there, as usual, issued us the zek uniform. They take us to their headquarters. The zone's staff is meeting there—the head of the regime, the doctor, the “kum” [KGB operative], and all that camp retinue. But they call us in one by one from the corridor. We are waiting. I look—some man, who looks like a Ukrainian, has approached, he's standing off to the side, listening. Mykola Slobodyan and I are whispering, and then we start talking loudly that this is probably our countryman, because he looks something like a Ukrainian. He listened, and then approaches us himself: “Hello, boys!” “Hello!” “Are you from Ternopil?” “From Ternopil.” “We heard a while ago that two boys from Ternopil were supposed to arrive. I'm from the Ivano-Frankivsk region, I'm Dmytro Syniak.” They say he is deceased now, although he wasn't that old yet. Death took a good man.* *(Dmytro Syniak, b. 1926, from the village of Hvizd, Nadvirna district, treacherously captured by the KGB on September 14, 1955. Died in 1992 (?). – V.O.) This was the first time I met such a combative, you could say, brother-in-arms. Dmytro Syniak was a supra-district propaganda officer, he was a conscious, brave man, had been wounded three times in battles. We know that those who had two, three wounds were awarded high Ukrainian honors. I felt encouraged when I heard that he was finishing his sentence—he had 20 years of hard labor. He said he had been sentenced to death, they commuted it to 20 years of hard labor, he had already served 18, and was due for release in about 2 years. Compared to my four years! So I strengthened my spirit, thinking: a man could endure so much, and I can't handle four years? That would be ridiculous. I became a completely different man, as they say, tougher. I saw people who had endured so much for independence, for an idea, because they did not want to reconcile with that Moscow commune.

Mykola Slobodyan went into the headquarters first. Coming out, he couldn't say anything to me, because they immediately called me in. The head of the regime is sitting there...

V. Ovsiyenko: Lieutenant Colonel Velmakin.

P. Vynnychuk: Velmakin, and the “kum”—I forgot his last name, and the doctor.

V. Ovsiyenko: The zone chief was Captain Pikulin, and the doctor was Seksyasyev.

P. Vynnychuk: And the doctor—what surprised me—the one who was supposed to protect our health, he was the one who talked the most about where to stick us to make things worse for us. He looked at my card, says: “This one is still young, healthy, he'll be rolling logs—put him in the cutting workshop.” Not the regime head, not the chief, but the doctor sends me... And, he says, with Slobodyan, his accomplice, they won't be on the same job, they'll be separate. The doctor is saying this—well, how can we trust such medicine and expect them to treat us? I heard this with my own ears, what the doctor was saying about us.

I came out of there. Dmytro Syniak immediately: “Petro, where did you end up?” I say: “In the cutting workshop.” He says: “You can already tell by the job that you boys are the real deal.” I say: “And how do you figure that?” “Because the questionable ones don't get jobs like that—not in the boiler room, not in the cutting workshop. The ones who get sent there are the ones the authorities don't like—to the hard labor. So you ended up just as I thought you would.”

So I was assigned to the cutting workshop—fifth brigade, second detachment. Mykola ended up in the first detachment—the brigade, I don't know which one you had.

M. Slobodyan: Service crew—the first brigade.

P. Vynnychuk: Well, in the evening, the introductions began. Here were the young guys from Lviv—Lyubomyr Starosolsky* (*From Stebnyk, b. 1955, 2 years under Art. 62. – V.O.), Zoryan Popadyuk* (*From Sambir, b. 1953, 7 years of imprisonment and 5 years of exile under Art. 62. – V.O.), from the Kharkiv region Ihor Kravtsiv (b. 1938, 5 years under Art. 62. – V.O.), Kuzma Matviyuk from the Khmelnytskyi region* (*Imprisoned in Uman in 1972 under Art. 62 for 4 years), Hryts Makoviychuk from Kremenchuk* (*b. 1935, 3 years under Art. 62. – V.O.), insurgents Roman Semenyuk from Sokal in the Lviv region* (*b. 1930, imprisoned in 1949, served 28 years. Died in 1992. – V.O.), Mykola Konchakivsky from the Lviv region, from the Mykolayiv district* (*30 years of imprisonment, died a month after his release in the fall of 1978. – V.O.), Vasyl Dolishniy, now deceased, from the Ivano-Frankivsk region* (*From the village of Pidlyuzhzhia, Tysmenytsia district. Imprisoned for participation in the insurgent movement 1946-1956, for distributing samvydav 1973-1983, on charges of “hooliganism” 1984-1987. Died Dec. 31, 1995.). Ivan Myron* (*From the village of Bychkiv, Rakhiv district, Zakarpattia, 25 years of imprisonment. Lives in Bychkiv. – V.O.), Mykhailo Zhurakhivsky* (*From Yasenia near Hoverla, 25 years of imprisonment, already deceased. – V.O.), Denys Lukashevych—an elderly Greek Catholic priest who served 25 years for refusing to convert to Moscow Orthodoxy, he suffered too, poor man—and held out to the end, his daughter later came for him with her son-in-law to Mordovia, they moved somewhere to the Lviv region or somewhere. Well, and many other boys, I can't list them all right now.

I worked for some time. I think the month of April came—they say a teacher from the Kyiv region has arrived...

V. Ovsiyenko: I arrived on April 12, 1974.

P. Vynnychuk: We, the first shift, are returning from work. The second shift is going. I say: “Take in a countryman there—a teacher from the Kyiv region has arrived, a very good guy.” We will get acquainted later—Mr. Vasyl Ovsiyenko. That was 1974, April. I remember that. From then on we were friends, until Mykola Slobodyan and I were transferred to the Urals, and Mr. Vasyl remained in Mordovia. They took us somewhere at the end of August 1975.

M. Slobodyan: I had about six or seven months left until my release.

P. Vynnychuk: About a month after we arrived in the 19th zone of Mordovia, that same Ruban, the KGB agent from Kyiv, came for us in the winter, the one who had promised us what a terrible life awaited us and what a paradise it would be if we agreed to work for him. And just before that, the boys were holding a protest. Mykola and I, it's true, did not take part in this action, I remember that well.

V. Ovsiyenko: Well, everyone was just observing at the beginning.

P. Vynnychuk: Firstly, no one asked us—they just said: boys, this is what's going to happen here. What can I say? We didn't quite understand this form of struggle yet, so we were honest and refused. They summoned us—there was a KGB agent, our countryman Stetsenko, I remember him perfectly—he summoned us and praised us for being good boys for refusing. He already knew. We started talking with the guys—with Roman Semenyuk, with Syniak... In the process, we identified a provocateur. He was from a common-crime zone, he simply gambled away his money there...

V. Ovsiyenko: That was Mykola Siryk from the Luhansk region.

P. Vynnychuk: Yes, he put out some leaflet there, drew Hitler, so they gave him a political charge—and brought him to us as their agent. But nobody needed him there, because everyone immediately understood what kind of man he was. But the fact is, we hinted to the boys that since the KGB agent praised us, someone had already informed on them.

And we also held back because our parents were supposed to come for a visit. We thought that if they traveled so many kilometers, and we were deprived of a visit, it would not be good. My father, mother, and sister came to see me. Mr. Vasyl Ovsiyenko was already in the zone, because I even showed myself to him through the small window—we lit matches, that was our signal. My father smoked, he had matches with him, Mykola Slobodyan smoked, and I was signaling. So all our guys were deliberately walking around the visitation house, and I was pointing them out: that one is from there, that one is from there, what their names are.

We stayed in Mordovia for less than two years. They're gathering us for transport. Mr. Vasyl Ovsiyenko was not on the lists, but we were. Zoryan Popadyuk wasn't, Kuzma Matviyuk, Hryts Makoviychuk, and Ihor Kravtsiv wasn't either. Mykola and I were on it, and someone else. But mostly they transported out those Russians—soldier-defectors, younger guys like that.

I don't remember how long we traveled. We arrived in the 37th [camp] in Perm Oblast early in the morning. We didn't enter the zone right away. First they took us to the banya. We immediately asked if the Marmus brothers and Senkiv were there—the banya attendant said that one Marmus was there, and Senkiv was there. We immediately asked to call them, because I was impatient, I wanted to meet my boys already—what did I care about the banya! I say, I'll have time for the banya later, just show us where they are. He says there's no way, but I say: “Come on, man, do this for us.” “Well then,” he says, “come on.” He took us, and we met the boys there. They were still sleeping, but they got up for us. We hugged there, this and that, we say that we have to run to the banya, but it's good that we are together. We asked where Mykola Marmus was. Volodymyr says that they don't want to transfer Mykola to be with him, but, he says, we'll make it so they'll be forced to bring him.

Our life began. A KGB agent from the Sumy region, a Ukrainian, his name was Hryva, started to get acquainted with us. First he went through all the Russians, and then the Estonians, the Jews, and us last, as his countrymen. True, I can't say that he was trying to persuade us to do anything, because he understood that we were not the kind of people you could talk to like that, to work for them—he didn't even hint at it. He spoke in general terms, that he would like to have friendly relations with us, because if anything happened, he could protect us, as his countrymen. His promises were grand.

Here began, I can say it openly now, our struggle with the authorities. I don't remember—maybe Volodymyr remembers better—we held our first protest action with a hunger strike... We fasted for a day, wrote protest statements—I don't know if it was an appeal to Brezhnev, or if it was some anniversary.

V. Marmus: I think a party congress was taking place then.

P. Vynnychuk: Yes, it must have been a congress—either the 25th or the 24th. We appealed to the congress, stating that according to the Constitution, Ukraine has the right to secede from the Soviet Union. I don't remember how many of us participated—whether it was 10 or 9 people. This greatly alarmed the zone's leadership. The KGB agents immediately swooped in: how could this be! We created all the conditions for them, we almost installed a television (there was no television, but they promised one) and we gathered the more or less docile ones, there are no academics or high-ranking writers among them—so what happened?

And then an operative named Terentyev appears in our zone. He had a very high opinion of himself—that he was a great Sherlock Holmes. Volodymyr Marmus wrote many coded messages, and all that had to be hidden. Terentyev sensed this and began to watch Volodymyr and other Ukrainians closely. He incited those Russian stool pigeons to watch for hunger strikes, for protests—because during my time there, we held about 6-7 protests.

Soon, Mr. Yevhen Pronyuk is brought to us* (*b. 1936, arrested July 6, 1972, for 7 years and 5 years of exile under Art. 62, part 1. – V.O.). He is a learned man, so they focused their attention on him. But we had been declaring protests even before that. Pronyuk proposed to carry out an action, and we were preparing for it.

V. Marmus. It was the anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Accords, August 1, 1976. Pronyuk was being sent back to the 36th zone, and there was an agreement on how to pass information.

P. Vynnychuk. The people were already listed in the information that went outside the zone, about 10 people, and there were 4 who we were supposed to tell that day, and in the morning they were to hand in their statements at the check, because we suspected those people. So that the operatives wouldn't find out about our plan too quickly and disrupt the action (they could have taken Volodymyr, Pronyuk, or someone else out of the zone), Pronyuk consulted on how to do it. I say: we tell these ones to write statements, I'll take this one and I'll watch him. It was a Saturday, and on Sunday they brought a movie. I say that I will watch this one so closely that he won't be able to pass on anything, because he will be under my surveillance.

Hearing that I was following him, he got scared. I won't name him now, he's a Russian. So it was: he's at the cinema—I'm behind him and sit nearby, he goes out to the section—I follow him, he goes to the washroom—I do too. I am his shadow. What I want to say is: we were not afraid of him for nothing. When he came out of the cinema—and he lived nearby, just across the corridor, I remember now where his bed was—I stood by the door and—wham—opened it. And there's an operative leaning his head towards him! But he didn't have time to hear anything, because I had already appeared. I believe this was not a coincidence. Why was it that as soon as he entered, the operative was already there? They couldn't have met by chance like that.

So we watched him. Lights out. Yevhen Pronyuk approaches him and says that tomorrow we are writing a protest, declaring a hunger strike. He no longer wants to refuse, so as not to expose himself—and there is no way to let the operative know, because it's already night.

M. Marmus: It was necessary for the names given in the information to match the reality.

P. Vynnychuk: We knew he liked to portray himself as a hero, that he had been in a closed prison. That's how we even used the stool pigeons.

Then the issue with the beds started. Those beds were such that you couldn't sleep on them. Instead of a spring base, there were these wide metal slats, but they were far apart, so the mattress would fall through. We would put cardboard, paper under them—and the guards would throw everything out from under us. And we thought: how long are we going to tolerate this—let's just throw them all out! Two of those unreliable guys started it. They didn't think it would turn into an action, but we were looking for a pretext. They started—and so did we, because we weren't the ones who started it, we just supported them. We say: “Boys, throw all the beds into the corridor, we'll sleep on the mattresses.” This lasted for two weeks—they came to persuade us, it was terrible. We won the battle of the beds: they didn't mess with them anymore, we put whatever we wanted under the mattresses.

Then we fought with the KGB for Mykola Marmus, to have him transferred from the 35th zone to ours. We did achieve our goal, but they warned us: “We'll see how you behave.” They were even going to set conditions for us—a man is being transferred from one prison to another, and we are supposed to be very polite. We said we would be—to the best of our ability. This action was also successful.

But Terentyev intensified his surveillance of Volodymyr, because he understood that Volodymyr was writing the information. There were channels, information was getting out of the zone, but whether it reached its destination—that's another question.

V. Marmus. We were writing a chronicle there of all the events that took place in the zone. I was hiding it in one place. Bernychuk was supposed to take it. Then my brother Mykola took some of it to Moscow, and there, at Sergei Kovalyov's place, they even called him a chauvinist.

P. Vynnychuk: Volodymyr Marmus drew me a fine Zaporozhian Cossack on a large sheet of paper for my name day, St. Peter's Day. Our whole group had signed it. I kept it for eight months. The day of my release was approaching.

On April 5, 1977, I was supposed to go to work on the first shift, but they wouldn't let me—they said I had to stay in the zone. I understood that they were going to take me for transport. This Terentyev, who had a grudge against us, sends for me and tells me to bring all the things I'm supposed to take with me, so they can look through them to see if there is any information. So I brought them in that wooden suitcase that Mykola Konchakivsky had given me back in Mordovia, and the second one, I think, Dmytro Paliychuk gave me here, in the Urals, in the 37th zone. He was from the Ivano-Frankivsk region, an OUN member, an old political prisoner, served 25 years. So I brought two bundles there. They looked through them, and he set aside exactly what I needed, saying that such a thing could not pass. I say: “Well, have you never seen a drawing of a Cossack?” “A Cossack is a Cossack, but there are signatures here.” “Are you afraid of Cossacks even in a picture?” I told him categorically that if he didn't give it back to me, I wouldn't leave the zone on my own—I would refuse to leave the zone on my own two feet. We talked like that, and he ordered me to go. It was already late afternoon, he still wanted to make some calls. I didn't even go to the guardhouse, I say: “I'm saying goodbye to my friends, as one should. I'll be back.” I think, we need to have some tea with the boys for the road—to say goodbye according to our custom. I'm telling you, I left that zone almost with tears in my eyes—I was saying goodbye to friends, because it would be hard to find such friends in freedom as we were there. There we stood up for one another, we didn't care about anything.

We drank tea, said our goodbyes. I understood that Terentyev would not give me my things. And I had promised that I would not leave the zone. So Volodymyr and I quickly sat down in the dining hall, and I wrote a complaint to the head of the KGB against this Terentyev, that he was provoking us. I wrote what he deserved, I didn't make anything up. We just wanted to settle scores with him, because he was always on our heels.

I came to the guardhouse and said: “Since I was summoned for transport, I have come. Are you giving me my things?” “We are not.” And he had already gathered about four soldiers near the checkpoint and a whole convoy, 6 guards are standing there, they surrounded me. I say: “I said I wouldn't go on my own two feet—I told you clearly.” And there were about 4 hours until the transport. Terentyev asks: “You won't go?” “No, I won't go!” They put me in handcuffs, but they put them on over the wrist bone, so that one side was pressing on me. I say: “Squeeze, but I'll endure these irons. I said I wouldn't go—and I won't!” Then 4 men took me—two in front by the legs and two behind by the arms, and carried me to the punishment cell. I stayed there for 4 hours in handcuffs, they didn't take them off. I didn't ask them to. After 4 hours they came, but I had already given the complaint to the officer on duty. Terentyev sent the officer on duty twice to get me to tear up the complaint. I said that if I sent it, it must reach its destination. I think his name was Mylsky, that bald one? The head of the KGB directorate—because we wrote to him.

Yuriy Dzyuba, from the Kharkiv region, was also in the punishment cell then. When they were carrying me out, they took off the handcuffs, but I said to Dzyuba: “Tell the boys that I did as we agreed, that they carried me out, I didn't walk on my own.” I don't know if he told them, that Dzyuba. Oh, and at the guardhouse I met Avakov, he's from Sverdlovsk, a Russian. They were taking him, as they said, for a “brainwashing.” That's what they said: “This one for brainwashing, and this one to exile”—that was about me.

M. Marmus: He had applied to change his last name there—it was supposed to be Avakyan.

P. Vynnychuk: Yes, he was supposed to be Avakyan. When the guards brought me to the guardhouse, there was already a convoy of soldiers, about ten men. The soldiers asked: “How are we going to carry a man? What have you done to him?” True, they did take the handcuffs off me. I say: “The soldiers won't carry me.” I'm thinking: if the voronok is four meters from the zone, and the soldiers are even addressing me: “Boy, what have we done to you? It's them—what have we done? Come on, hurry up, so we can make it to the train.” And their officer started on me: “Well, what can I do with the cops, you see what they're like. We're completely different.” I agreed and went to the voronok.

We arrived in Sverdlovsk. The head of the detention center immediately: “Right, this one to the second floor, this one—to the punishment cell.” That was about me. Right away, I don't even know why. I sat there for 2-3 hours, then I banged on the door for the guard: “Give me a pen and paper, I'm going to write a complaint to the supervising prosecutor.” “What's the matter?” “Give it to me, I demand it. Why am I being held in a punishment cell? For what violation?” The same one comes and says: “The violation is that you are an enemy of the people. That's one thing, and secondly, I don't have the right to put you with others—you'll spread propaganda.” “Whatever, give it to me—I'm writing to the supervising prosecutor, because you have no right to keep me in a punishment cell.”

I sat there for almost a day, and only on the second day was I placed alone in a rather large cell, no one else was thrown in with me. I was there for about a week, sitting alone in that quarantine. From there, they took me to Tomsk. I didn't know where I was going, until I started asking the soldiers. The convoy I got was the kind that would bring all sorts of things to the criminals, and I was sitting separately, so they came to me too. I say: “Well, I'm poor, we didn't have money, I don't have things like they do.” And they had money, they bought tea, vodka. Well, that's their business. But I got to talking with one of the convoy guards and asked: “Look in my file, where are they taking me?” He looked: “Your final stop is Tomsk.” I think: Mykola Slobodyan and Andriy Kravets are in Tomsk—maybe I'll end up somewhere close. I thought it was a small region or oblast. I thought I would definitely meet the boys.

What I missed. When we were leaving the zone, they gave us some kind of mandatory vaccinations. If you didn't go, they would practically drag you in handcuffs to get the shot. This was for those who were being released or transported. And I got that shot too.

I left the zone on April 5, and in Tomsk, as Mykola also said, they crammed us into that “Stolypin” car with dogs. I'm no longer traveling as a political prisoner, but as an exile, so they pay less attention to my charge, they're transporting me with all those criminals, not locking me up separately.

I arrive in Bely Yar exactly on April 30, 1977, just before May Day. They're holding me because the KGB agent isn't there. Andriy Kravets is in exile in a village not far from here, in the same district.

Remark: But you don't know that, right?

P. Vynnychuk: I do, because I have the address, Andriy wrote to us. I already had his district and the name of the village written down. I ask where it is. They say it's not far—about 25 km. That's close, I think. And the situation was that we had the right to choose our own place within the district. That KGB agent (Mozolyov, I think his name was) asks: “Where do you want to go?” “Well, I'd probably go to a village, since I'm from a rural area myself. What villages are close by?” “Well, there's Lysytsia, 50 km away, you have to go by water, there's also Palochka, about 50 km, you have to get there through the forest.” “And I'd like to go to poludyonovka.” “Ah, you want to go to your accomplice?” I thought he didn't know. “Well, you knew perfectly well.” “So what if I want to?” “Andriy Kravets isn't there right now, he's gone home on leave, but if you want—go ahead, I'll call now, and a tractor will come for you, because you won't get there otherwise. The road there is still under construction.” They finished it in 1980, when I was released. But back then, it was a tractor—two bundles on the tow hook behind, and me in the cabin. No other transport could get through, because the snow was just starting to melt.

They brought me there. I look—such a small village, but exile is exile, what can you do. I didn't have a kopek, I couldn't even write home. And Andriy isn't there, and there's no one to borrow from. I say to the manager that I need to live somehow, to put me in the house where Andriy lived. And there's another man living there—an exiled alimony dodger. He's even poorer than I am. At least I had some kind of padded jacket and boots, but he didn't even have that. So we both laugh: “I'm poor, and you're even poorer, even though you live in freedom.”

I started writing letters, I even wrote a letter to you, Mr. Vasyl, if you remember? You wrote me a longer one, and I wrote you a shorter one. Then a letter reached me from Chornovil, now deceased* (*Vyacheslav Chornovil was then in exile in the village of Chappanda in Yakutia. – V.O.). Chornovil wrote to me that he was collecting information on who was imprisoned where and how, and if I knew the addresses of the boys, I should write them to him. So I wrote him the addresses of the Marmus brothers, they were in the Tyumen Oblast, I gave him the address of Volodka Senkiv. You, Volodymyr, wrote to me: “Burn my letters, because clouds are gathering over me.” Remember? I did just that, right away. And I receive a second letter from Chornovil. I wrote back to him that the district KGB agent had already come to see me after that. He was obviously monitoring my mail. He said that if I write to Chornovil, the letter won't reach him anyway—he said it openly, right by the house where I lived.

In that village of Poludyonovka, I met a girl. Our relationship was like that of any young people. She was still in school, and I was already, as they say, with a prison record behind me. Since her family was not afraid that I was a political prisoner, even though others said I was this and that, neither her father nor her mother paid any attention to it. They would reply: “We see what kind of man he is—if all ‘enemies of the people’ are like him, then they would be very fine people.” Her maiden name was Lyudmila Ivanivna Smyshlyayeva.

I was in good health, but then, probably in August, I felt a great weakness in my body, something was not right with me. Sometime at the end of September, the illness finally broke me. I didn't want to go to the hospital, but Lyudmila, the girl I was dating, and her brother, now deceased, took me to the hospital. I didn't want to go there, because I had seen what their medicine was like. I said that I had been poisoned and it should pass. But when I went for a check-up, my blood was already 60% infected—there was a virus in my blood. They immediately admitted me to the Botkin infectious disease ward, as they thought I had jaundice. And the head doctor was from Ukraine, from the Dnipropetrovsk region—a quite qualified, young Ukrainian woman, although she spoke Russian. For some reason, she immediately took a liking to me—maybe because I was Ukrainian. She says: “Petro, I see that you don't drink, but you have a disease from an injection. Maybe you were shooting up?” I say: “What are you—kidding me? What kind of drug addict do I look like?” In truth, she immediately asked why I had come there. With a little laugh, I replied that I had come “for the scent of the taiga,” I say: “Don't you know how people come here from Ukraine, because they say there's big money here?” Well, I'm playing the fool—I didn't want to elaborate. So what? Three days later, a nurse says: “The KGB agent came, a short one—do you know him?” “I do.” “He was talking with the head doctor the whole time,”—she had eavesdropped at the door.—“He said that you are an enemy of the people, that you are a terrible criminal. But as long as I've known you, I don't see anything like that.”

In the evening, the doctor comes. And I feel very weak. She explains to me: “If you hadn't come for another two days, you could have died. We wouldn't have been able to help you. Why didn't you come?” “Because I don't really believe in medicine.” “Now I understand why.” “And why is that?” “Do you know Mozolyov?” “I do.” “He told me everything, who you are. I told him that I don't care who you are—the man is sick, I have to treat the person. And if he's so terrible, then you can keep him somewhere else. But he's in my ward, he's sick, I have to treat him.”

She told me that the blood infection was from a needle: “Try to remember.” I say: “They gave us mandatory shots.” “That's it. That shot did it to you. Because you're not a drug addict and not a drunkard. If you were a drunkard, if you had a weak heart or liver, you wouldn't have withstood such a load—the state your blood was in.”

So I lay there for almost three months, and I'll tell you what: this Lyudmila of mine was with me every other day. She would buy me apples, although they are not so easy to get in Siberia. I was allowed butter, so she brought that too, and her mother even brought cranberry and lingonberry juice—they treated me like one of their own relatives. So I can't say that Russian people are no good or anything—they saw that a boy was in trouble, and in deep trouble, and when the doctor told her mother-in-law, who was passing through and brought me juice, jam, and fruit, that it cleanses the blood—where do you get fruit there?—Lyuda would buy fruit and butter at the local boarding school, because they had supplies, and if you pay money, the sellers will sell. I would give her money, she would buy all that for me, and so I recovered. They discharged me. True, I still couldn't stand on my feet very well, but the doctor said that you'll gain back those twenty rubles [of weight] at home, they can't manage it here anymore. I must have had two full IV bags, they were cleaning my blood, I was on drips. I went through a lot in those three months.

We didn't get married there on the spot—I had the marriage ceremony and registered it in Rosokhach. And I baptized my son here, because I didn't want to go to that Russian church, even though at that time we also had Russian Orthodoxy, there was no other. But I said that I still don't want to go to church there, and it was quite a long way to travel. On September 12, 1978, our son Mykola was born in exile.

Sometime, probably in January 1979, Chornovil wrote me another letter. He was in Yakutia at the time. He asked for something related to the dictionary he was compiling. So, I receive the letter one day, and the next day a KGB agent from Ternopil arrives, and with this Mozolyov they summon me to the office to hand over Chornovil's letter. I say I haven't received any letter. They knew 100% that the letter was already with me. I said that when I receive it, I will give it to them through this Mozolyov, but I don't have the letter right now. I remember that KGB agent—I think it was Mykola Hrynchuk. He told me that he had already been to Volodymyr Senkiv's place and had stopped by to get that letter from me. I was surprised why, and then I hear that they fabricated a case against Chornovil. I realized that the KGB wanted to attach that letter to the case file as well. And for me to hand it over voluntarily—to show what a good boy I was. Some time later, I hear that they fabricated a case against him and gave him 3 or 5 years...

V. Ovsiyenko: Five, for “attempted rape.”

P. Vynnychuk: It's something I don't even want to talk about, because it's unbelievable and untrue. The authorities did whatever they wanted with us back then.

Soon Andriy Kravets returned from home. They had let him go on leave from exile for 10 or 15 days. He didn't even know that I was in Poludyonovka. By the time my letter reached Rosokhach, Andriy was already on his way back to exile. He said: “If you had sent a telegram, they would have sent something from home.” A few rubles and maybe some pants or a sweater, because there was no money for me to buy anything. Until you get that first paycheck, you don't know how... Mykola, you know yourself.

Andriy and I met like brothers, we embraced. He was a very stubborn man, like us Ukrainians—he had to see his cause through to the end. He did not want to submit to this communist government, no matter what they told him.

We took an old house there, renovated it, fixed the stove, and we both settled there. None of the locals wanted to live in that house, because they said it was no good, a cold house.

We worked on the farm every day of the week. We had no holidays, no days off, no one to relieve us. We had to report to the commandant's office every 10 days. To be fair, sometimes the manager himself would intervene on our behalf, because we were leaving work. It's about 25 kilometers, and you have to find a ride—there's no scheduled transport. You might be able to hitch a ride on a cart, or if a car is heading that way, that's good, you get there quickly, otherwise it's on foot. So it took almost a whole day, and he had no replacement for us. So they gave us this little concession, that we could call the commandant on the phone. He hears the voice and the manager confirms that it's really us calling, then he's immediately fine, he puts a checkmark there. That was the kind of favor they did for us.

Andriy and I didn't spend a full year together there in exile. He was released, I saw him off as God commanded: we had a farewell evening, gathered friends who were worthy of it. Andriy went home, and I stayed there for another two years. Then, in that house, my future wife and I lived until the end of my exile.

At the end of March 1980, I came home. Since we were transported to exile under convoy, we accumulated a certain number of days. I served two months less. The transit in the “Stolypin” car was counted as one day for three. In 1980, I moved into my father's house with my wife and young son. By that time, Andriy Kravets had also married, and he also had a son. It's a shame he passed away at such a young age.

I came home, and the KGB here started summoning me to Chortkiv, wanting me to work on the collective farm. And what could I earn on the collective farm—those 2-3 rubles a day. Well, I was living in my father's house, I could live there for a year, two, but then I had to think about my own housing. So, I had to go elsewhere for work, to somehow make a living.

V. Ovsiyenko: Was there surveillance?

P. Vynnychuk: I didn't have official surveillance, it missed me. So I could travel for work. The first trip was to the Chernihiv Oblast, Novhorod-Siverskyi district, where the Golden Gates are, or whatever they called them... I had barely arrived in the village when the party organizer comes and says that the KGB had called, asking if a certain man was here. I didn't travel alone—my cousin had a brigade, there were 8 or 9 of us, depending on the job. We worked for 4, 5, 6 months at a time.

So little by little—I bought an old house. I moved across the bridge to live. My wife's relatives helped us, gave her some money, and I earned a little, and somehow, with, as they say, God's help, we bought that homestead. I moved into my own house with two sons—in March 1981, my son Ivan was born. I say that the first is a Siberian, and the second is already from Rosokhach.

Sometime around 1989, we started creating the “Memorial” society in Chortkiv, I also took part in it. Then we created the Rukh [People's Movement of Ukraine], and joined the Ukrainian Republican Party.

V. Marmus: Joined? We were the ones who created it!

P. Vynnychuk: Well, we practically created it. Mykola Slobodyan already talked about how the police dispersed us in the park near the stadium when we were creating “Memorial.” First, the KGB chief Chernysh arrived in a “bobyck,” and then two or three police cars surrounded us, treating us like criminals.

M. Marmus: What's interesting is that we were recording on a tape recorder, and they wanted to snatch that recorder from us.

P. Vynnychuk: Levko Horokhivsky from Ternopil took part in those meetings* (*b. 1943, Art. 62 part 1, 1969-1973, founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, People's Deputy of Ukraine 1990-1998. – V.O.) . Yevstakhiy Zhyznomyrsky* (*Founding member of UHG. – V.O.), I think, was not there. Most of us were from the villages—there were boys from Nahiryanka, from Shulhanivka, and three of us from Rosokhach. And later, the intelligentsia saw that this wasn't being punished so severely—so it meant you didn't have to be afraid. Then teachers, doctors started to join. Volodymyr Marmus went to the hospitals, convincing them that there was nothing to be afraid of, that it was time for them to get on their feet. He did a lot of work in Chortkiv, until he proved his point that we shouldn't be afraid—on the contrary, we need to unite, as a united front we can fear nothing. We should thank him—he did a lot in Chortkiv, although some have now forgotten. But it would be good to remind them how it was and what happened.

The first panakhyda [memorial service] in Chortkiv was very well-attended. Some people saw a Ukrainian flag for the first time in their lives—there were some who just cried. I myself felt something like that when I saw that uplift—the whole city, from here, from the old church, from there, from across the bridge, from the railway station—there were still people there and they were already turning towards the cemetery and the bridge on the hill. It was a powerful shift.

M. Marmus: The column of people stretched for about three kilometers.

P. Vynnychuk: Many flags. There was a strong uplift of spirit then. Although I didn't need any extra spirit, I felt within myself that this was a rising force—it meant we would achieve what we needed.

M. Marmus: We collected 2,170-something rubles then. We drew up a record for that money and left it for “Memorial,” for the restoration of the Sich Riflemen's grave.

P. Vynnychuk: There was the first open rally. The secretary of the district committee, a communist, speaks, patriots speak. The secretary goes to the microphone, and he gets booed, nobody wanted to listen. Then Yevstakhiy Zhyznomyrsky started to speak, he gave a very fine speech, and Levko Horokhivsky spoke, Volodymyr Marmus. People already saw, as that Zhyznomyrsky said, that “The Commune is like a punctured purse, its spirit is leaking out, because no matter where you patch it, there are holes all around.” People saw this with enthusiasm, that there was no going back to the old ways and there was no fear. And the authorities quietly sat down and, as they say, folded their hands—that was it, they didn't try to fight anymore.

M. Marmus: There was an interesting incident when all the residents of the city were invited to the first open meeting of “Memorial.” The secretary of the district committee and the head of the district council of people's deputies came. They saw that we had placed our blue-and-yellow flag and the flag of Soviet Ukraine. And they say: “We will not participate under a nationalist flag, we will not speak—let them take that little flag off the table, then I will enter.” The people booed them, though at first they were afraid. Well, that was already nearing the end of 1989...

P. Vynnychuk: In conclusion, I want to say that I now have two sons. My older son, Mykola, has already completed his military service. My younger son is currently serving in the army in the Luhansk Oblast. He should be discharged in the fall. Well, and my wife—that's my family. I have a father and mother, they were born in 1927. I have two sisters, but no brothers. The older is Maria, born in 1950, the younger is Oksana, born in 1966.

* * *

V. Ovsiyenko: Mr. Mykola Vynnychuk, born in 1927, father of Petro Vynnychuk.

Mykola Vynnychuk: I used to tell Petro about the partisans, and he took it to heart. I had to help the partisans. They would arrive here at the Halyleya forest—they needed something for their kitchen. They would give us money, we would pay the farmers for a heifer or a bullock. Then we would slaughter it in the yard—and onto the cart, take it there to the kitchen. One time during Easter holidays—here we have halunky, because we have halunky for Easter holidays (that is, pysanky). Everywhere in the village there are female liaisons. And Ivan Gulchyk and I slaughtered a heifer, I went for the horses, we put the meat on the cart and are taking it to the forest. And here's the reconnaissance: “Where are you going?” “We're taking meat to the kitchen.” “Well, you probably won't reach us now, and if you turn back—you'll fall into the hands of the Bolsheviks. Because they are advancing on us from three sides—from Mlyntsi from here, from Zalissia, and from Rosokhach, and from over there, from Sosulivka. So you watch out, get rid of it somewhere.” But we managed—there are houses here, a ditch, and there's a place called Svynarka. We stuck the cart in there, we say to the woman: “Horses—to the stable, and do whatever you want with the meat.” And we left.

About half an hour later—two “kukuruznyks” [Po-2 biplanes] are flying. And there are very dense thickets there, so they didn't notice anyone. They went towards the Halyleya forest, and the partisan Bystryi was already there. They were spotted there, they started shooting at those planes—they shot down one “kukuruznyk,” and one escaped. Maybe 20 or 30 minutes passed—a battle began there. A heavy battle, but not long, about 40 minutes or half an hour. And it fell silent. They said that 400 Bolshevik soldiers fell there, and Bystryi retreated deep into the forest, towards the hamlet of Penky. That Bystryi—Petro Kholochuk, a native of the village of Chornokintsi, Chortkiv district.

I told Petro all these things, and he, as a little boy, listened to it all. But I told him not to talk too much about it, not to tell anyone, because it wasn't calm yet, they were still dragging people in for such things.

I served time, supposedly for some kind of desertion—they pinned it on me that I supposedly didn't want to be in the FZO* *(Factory and Plant Training school. – V.O.) school. The military commissariat supposedly sent me, and I ran away. I told Petro that we had wanted to go to Bystryi, but the partisans turned us back and told us to adjust to civilian life. But they took us anyway. And they couldn't try me for helping the partisans, because there was no evidence, so they convicted me for the FZO. That was in 1949, they gave me 4 years, I served it all. I returned in 1953, and he was born in 1954. I told him all this, and he took it all to heart and came to love it.

I told him that we had a district leader with the pseudonym Shum. There was a hamlet here called Zvirynets. They said there was a man there named Natolochenyi, who was playing with both our side and theirs—Russian intelligence would visit him. No matter what, you have to take them alive—that was the task I was given. So what am I to do? This was already 1946, June or July was approaching. There was a man named Yashko Basystyi, me, and we needed two more village boys to do it. And we were already told that they were supposed to come to his place. It was a Sunday, we lay in ambush there. They're coming on a German motorcycle. We say to our boys: “You two shoot, and we two will jump them, so they surrender to us. Shoot, but not at them.” Because there was no order to shoot them—only to take them alive. And they would say—whether this Natolochenyi was an agent or not.

This plan didn't work out for us, because this was intelligence—they were more experienced than we were. Or maybe we didn't have the knack for it. They escaped, and we chased after them, chased them, and then they were already far away, we couldn't do anything to them.

Or sometimes they would come: “Right, there are boys, you have to take them via a liaison to such-and-such a place.” So you try to lead them through such terrain, to avoid getting caught. But you can't guard against everything, because there are soldiers everywhere. They won't be on the good roads—they're all hiding in such nooks and crannies. The partisans, they are in the nooks. So we go, a few of us in front, and the rest follow behind. You take binoculars, because you can see better with binoculars at night than with your own eyes. You look—a horde is coming. I say: “Boys, hit the dirt, because our doom is coming.” They let them get as close as possible, into the range of machine guns and grenades—that was the order. And then: “Halt! Who goes there?” If they answer in our language, it means they are our own. Then you check the password—our own have met. It means we passed safely, without a fight.

And the boy loved to listen to all that, he took it to heart and loved it—and so he repeated it!

V. Ovsiyenko: And did you know that Petro became a member of the organization in 1972? Did he tell you about it?

M. Vynnychuk: No. But when the KGB rushed into the village, I said, it seems something is up with our village, since they are circling around here. They didn't touch anyone at first—for a month or even two. So the boys thought that they knew nothing. But they knew. I tell the boys that they already know, I can see right through them—I've studied them so well. When I said that, Petro confessed. I asked him to tell me everything, how it was. He told me. I ask what they are thinking now, what they advise themselves to do. “Well, what,” he says, “we're thinking of either running away somewhere, or what.” “Nothing will come of it—they'll shoot you all.” “So what should we do?” “You have to wait for the day when they take you, and after the trial you will have to serve your entire sentence, even though you don't deserve that punishment. The day of the proclamation of independent Ukraine by Mykhailo Hrushevsky—that, I say, is all correct, but you will have to serve time. I'm telling you: don't hide anywhere, and don't run anywhere—just walk around the village, go to the cinema, as you wish. Go, until they take you.”

Slobodyan would come and ask: “What should we do, uncle?” I tell him: “You won't get away anywhere, because they've blocked everything everywhere. They've already caught you, but the ringleader isn't there yet. They would have taken you long ago, but they want you to perhaps show them the way, to gather even more of you, if there are any.” “Maybe there is someone, and maybe there isn't.” Suffice it to say, that was the answer, I didn't question any further, I didn't need to know that.

V. Ovsiyenko: So that you wouldn't be under suspicion.

M. Vynnychuk: I didn't want that, because they were looking at me sideways all the time anyway because of that captain... I had many run-ins with one captain. Someone informed on me, but I denied it. They didn't try me for him—there was no evidence. But there was a lot of harassment, they dragged four of us in. He died, and two of ours are still alive.

I told Petro, maybe about one more thing. They brought a big steam engine to thresh all the grain in the village and take it away. This was so that people would have nothing to give the Banderites to eat. And Chumak gives me the task of destroying it. It has to be destroyed today.

I take another man—he's still alive, his name is Ivan Danylov—I take a machine gun, I stand with the machine gun, and I push him, I tell him to go into the enclosure and set it on fire. And it was guarded, they placed it specially in the middle of the village near the village council and guarded it. It had to be done very carefully. We did it, it burned to the ground. It was very difficult to approach, but we approached.

I told my son Petro things like that. He said that this work should be continued, but I say that it's too late now, that's ancient history. You tell someone, and they don't listen, they're thinking about drinking vodka.

V. Ovsiyenko: So it wasn't unexpected for you that Petro turned out to be in an underground organization and was arrested? You probably expected that arrest?

M. Vynnychuk: Yes, I expected it and I told them: boys, sit tight and don't move anywhere.

V. Ovsiyenko: And how did it happen? First they took Stepan Sapelyak, then Volodymyr Marmus, then they started taking others. And when they came for you—how was it?

M. Vynnychuk: You want me to tell you exactly how it was?

V. Ovsiyenko: Yes.

M. Vynnychuk: Alright, then. There was this rumor from them. The day before the boys were supposed to go hang those posters and flags, Sapelyak showed up. Volodymyr tells him what we are thinking of doing. “I want to take part too.” “Well, if you want to take part, your task will be this: go to Chortkiv. There, near the House of Culture, there is a willow tree or something like that. Hide the flagpoles there and make sure you are in Lviv, in your apartment, in two hours. And we'll run in on a whim and do it all. And you will be a participant, because you delivered them and went to your apartment, and we'll do everything ourselves.”

He went by bus to Chortkiv, then went to his relatives, threw it all behind the bed. There was a girl there and also a prison guard, a neighbor. Stepan threw it, took the girl and they went to the House of Culture. Who knows if that guard or the people at home didn't look to see what he had thrown there? Maybe they didn't look, it's just—he threw it and that's it. He took the girl to the House of Culture. But he kept coming out often—to see if the boys were there yet. He came out—they've arrived. Vladko immediately: “What are you doing here? Why aren't you in Lviv?” “Well, I was... I was...”. “We were sitting there, you'll expose us, because you were seen first.”

The KGB agents immediately rushed to the schools—whoever wasn't in school that day, they dragged them in. I don't know if it was early in the morning or what—he hadn't even reached his apartment when they grabbed him on the way. Because he even told the girl when they were leaving the House of Culture: “Look, see what's hanging there!” And he didn't make it to Lviv, they got him somewhere on the way, I think, I heard something like that...

V. Ovsiyenko: No, the verdict says he was arrested on February 19. Almost a month later.

M. Vynnychuk: That's February 19 when he was brought to justice, but he told everything sooner, right away.

V. Ovsiyenko: Maybe so.

M. Vynnychuk: Yes, I'm telling you. He didn't even make it there. They let him go and then summoned him again.

Oh, when Vladzko told him: “Why are you here and not in Lviv, you'll expose us with this,” some of the boys started to get scared, they said: “We'll be arrested, but we have to do our duty.” Sapelyak said: “Don't worry about me, don't worry.” They got to work, but Lysy was afraid to hang his posters, they burned them in the forest.

V. Ovsienko: And how was Petro arrested?

M. Vynnychuk: It happened here, at dawn, while we were still asleep—I heard footsteps, them rushing in. I had been saying that if not today, then tomorrow they would come for him, because they had already taken Vladko, and so-and-so—so they would come for you either today or tomorrow. And just then, I heard the stomping—they were here. They banged on the door. I opened it, and this Lieutenant Colonel Bidyovka says, “We have two witnesses; we’ve come to conduct a search.” I said, “Go ahead, search.” They searched and searched everywhere, looked through everything, and then they said, “We’re taking your Petro. If he’s guilty, he won’t come back, and if he’s not—he’ll return home.” And that was it, they took him.

V. Ovsienko: Did they find anything here? Did they take anything?

M. Vynnychuk: They didn’t take anything. Nothing was found. I used to have a pistol, but they didn’t find it. (Laughs). It would have been a real mess if they had... But they didn't. I thought I’d keep it as a memento. I threw it away after that search.

I waited until the trial. They let us in for the verdict. They read it out. There was a lawyer named Saltison...

V. Ovsienko: Perhaps Katsnelson?

M. Vynnychuk: Yes, Katsnelson. He says, “Citizen judges! I would ask that Sapelyak be given the lightest sentence because he helped us solve this crime.” Well, I stood there watching—what was this supposed to mean? They were all in a cage during the trial. So Sapelyak hung his head, and I thought to myself, if you were the one facing real trouble, you wouldn't have behaved like that. He lowered his head, his poor mother sitting there. I wasn't the only one who heard it. There were several of us there...

And this happened at night; the verdict was read by candlelight. People asked, “Why by candlelight?” They were told the power was out. I said no, that’s not the reason. You see, the boys had taken their oath by candlelight, so the verdict had to be by candlelight, too. When we came out, the lights were on in all the houses—only in the courthouse had they gone out. (Laughs). So I say it's because they had an organization, an oath. My wife and I figured it out right away; she thought the same thing.

V. Ovsienko: Tell us more about Petro. It's not as hard to talk about it now—but what was it like to live through it back then?

M. Vynnychuk: It was quite an ordeal... I was also worried for myself, because I'd once had my own dealings with the authorities, and now he was having his. Truth be told, they didn't touch me. I can’t say that they threatened me or anything like that. Nothing happened to me, not even when I had to take a care package to Ternopil. They said to bring it not today, but tomorrow. There was a one-day difference. The guard didn't want to accept it, so I went to the investigator, Bidyovka. He came out and requested, “Accept it, accept it. His father has come.” So they took the package. So I didn't have any such trouble from the KGB. The only thing was that where I worked—and I did hard labor in a quarry, breaking stones for foundations—I had adapted. The demolition men were guys I knew, so I would buy explosives from them. I would blast the rock myself to make the work easier. Everyone did it, that's how we lived—what else could I do? And so they forbade me from working in the quarry—they ordered it closed and took my compressor, the rock drill, and the rods away from me. Before that, I would drill, blast, and we would do a little business on the side—some of it went to the kolkhoz, and we sold a little. You had to live somehow, that's how it was. But after Petro was arrested, they closed the quarry. Two women and two men came with some kind of equipment. They surveyed the whole area. What were they looking for—gold or something? I have no idea. But they scanned the entire territory. After that, they forbade us from working there and closed that quarry. They took my compressor and hauled it off to the tractor brigade. I went to the construction brigade and worked there until I retired.

V. Ovsienko: And did you visit Petro in Mordovia or the Urals?

M. Vynnychuk: I went to Mordovia. We were doing some masonry work here right when I was supposed to go, when this Ilko—I forget his last name—came to see me. He had been imprisoned there with Petro, in Mordovia. In the Buchach region, they had beaten up some Raikom officials, and for that they were tried and served 25 years. Slobodyan should know him, because he visited Slobodyan too. Mykola, come here! I'll ask him now. Listen, do you know that Ilko who came from Buchach?

M. Slobodyan: His last name is Stoyko. He's a political prisoner; he became a Jehovah's Witness in prison.

V. Ovsienko: I also know Ilko Stoyko from Mordovia. He got 25 years for the UPA, and in the camp they added another 5 years for Jehovah's Witness literature. So he served 30 years in total.

M. Vynnychuk: So I didn’t go to the Urals, because we had already built half the house. He visited us three times. Ilko told us about the conditions there. But I didn’t visit the Urals—I had started building the house, had already laid half the walls, so it just wasn’t possible. We didn’t make any more visits after Petro was transferred to the Urals.

Published:

Youths from the Fiery Furnace / Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group. Compiled by V. V. Ovsienko. – Kharkiv: Folio, 2003. – pp. 93–97.

Photo:

Vynnychuk Petro VYNNYCHUK in his youth.

Photos by V. Ovsienko:

Vynnychuk1 Film roll 9779, frame 7, April 2, 2000, Rosokhach village. Petro VYNNYCHUK.

VynnychukM Film roll 3933, frame 7, January 23, 2003, Rosokhach village. Mykola VYNNYCHUK, father of Petro Vynnychuk.