I n t e r v i e w w i t h V i t a l i y S h e v c h e n k o
V. Ovsiienko: October 21, 1998, in the premises of the Republican Christian Party at 23 Petro Sahaidachnyi Street. Vakhtang Kipiani is filming Vitaliy Shevchenko with a video camera, and Vasyl Ovsiienko is recording on a dictaphone.
V. Shevchenko: I am Vitaliy Shevchenko. I am now the executive secretary of the Orthodox newspaper *Nasha Vira* (Our Faith).
I was born in 1934 in the city that is now called Donetsk, but back then it was named after the dictator. About a year before I was born, the orthography was changed, and the city had to be called by its Russian name—Stalino. And a few years before that, it was called Staline.
My father was Ukrainian, and my mother was listed as Russian, but toward the end of her life, I proved to her that she was simply a Russified, Moscow-ized Belarusian. Although they met in the Donetsk region, they came from the former Chernihiv Governorate. True, later a part of the Chernihiv Governorate—my father’s Konotop region, or Konotopshchyna—became part of the Sumy Oblast, and that is Ukraine, while my mother’s Starodub ended up in Russia. Although, in my opinion, the entire Bryansk Oblast, where Starodub is now located, and even the Orel and especially the Smolensk Oblasts, are ethnically Belarusian lands, not Russian.
My childhood was like this. First, my parents were communists. They were Soviet intelligentsia: my father was an agronomist, and my mother was a doctor. They were educated and graduated from universities under Soviet rule. They were both members of the VKP(b) and raised me in the communist spirit. Moreover, as I analyze it now, I see that their faith was a sincere communist faith. Because, for instance, we later spent about a year and a half under German, Hitlerite occupation, and my parents continued to raise me in the Soviet spirit: “ours” were the Soviets, and “they” were the enemies. My childhood is connected with the war. We were evacuated, twice in fact, and ended up surrounded in the Rostov Oblast, then returned with the Germans to my father’s homeland, in the Konotop Raion. We lived for a bit in the Chernihiv region, and then traveled around the Sumy Oblast. That’s why a bit of skepticism gradually built up in me. It seemed to me that many of those who live in one place are a bit limited. Their train of thought is that, well, they lie a little about us (or write nothing at all), this part here is a bit wrong, but somewhere else everything is right. And since I had been to many places, I saw that everything was far from how it was written in the newspapers.
This skepticism grew, and somewhere in the upper grades of school (this was around 1949), I first came to the idea of Ukrainian independence. But there was still the thought that maybe our Soviet socialism was incorrect, but there should be a correct socialism. Around the tenth grade (this was 1951), I moved from communist to social-democratic views. And I was an advocate for independence.
Later, sometime in the sixties, when I met the guys with whom we formed a circle, when I read what Franko said about Engels’s people’s state, I had another turnabout—I moved to right-democratic views and now support a free market economy.
I engaged in discussions practically everywhere I worked. Everywhere I found some people, argued with someone. But I only found like-minded people when I returned to Ukraine from Sakhalin. I was on Sakhalin from 1959 to 1962—I spent about a year sailing with fishermen as a journalist. Finally, when I returned to Ukraine, that’s when I began to meet like-minded people. Our circle formed in the sixties. It included Borys Orlovskyi. He is an economist and still works in some agricultural department: economics related to agriculture. Andriy Matviienko was an engineer at the Artema plant; I had known him back in Konotop, where I finished school. I graduated from there in 1951, and our circle with these guys formed starting around 1963. It was active for almost the entire sixties.
What did we do? We reproduced a little of what we liked from Ukrainian and Russian samvydav and put it into circulation. We wrote some things ourselves: both Borys Orlovskyi and I wrote. There was my four-page note, “Forging the Butt of an Axe as a Community.” This was around the end of 1964. In fact, right after that Kremlin coup when Brezhnev came to power. Even at that time, I believed that the Soviet regime was gradually heading for collapse. There were fresh rumors then about the events in Novocherkassk, there were strikes in several cities. And samvydav was gaining strength—this was something new, unprecedented. I had the impression that we were indeed moving toward some kind of liberation—both the liberation of Ukraine as a future independent state and the overthrow of the dictatorial regime. It could have happened not even simultaneously, but separately. But, thank God, later everything collapsed at once, and we became independent. The empire, while it lived, destroyed a great deal, and in its fall, it destroyed even more.
But I haven’t told everything about our circle. I need to tell you why I was imprisoned. At that time, from about 1962 to the end of the sixties, until 1969, I worked at the Ukrainian Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries. I was entrusted with working with foreign Ukrainians. I became very close with Ivan Koliasaka, who at that time was a student at the Higher Party School in Kyiv. He was a Canadian communist, and I was a Soviet communist. We somehow connected, trusted each other, and it turned out that we were both far from being communists, although we both had our party cards. It turned out that he was buying many books that were available and could be of interest to him in the West. He established a contact so that the Society for Friendship and Cultural Relations would send these books to Canada at its own expense. And, as I understood it, he inserted some things into the covers. And it went through. And then I immediately gave him a lot of samvydav. I also gave him my own material, typed on a typewriter. He made a bundle and gave it to a Canadian who was in the KGB’s good graces. But they still searched him in Moscow, found the samvydav at the bottom of his trunk under his underwear, and asked him: “Where did this come from? Where did you get it?” He said outright that Ivan Koliaska gave it to him. A search at Koliaska’s place. This was around 1965.
And before that, I had told Koliaska my impressions from a visit to Czechoslovakia in 1963. He listened and said: “Well, write it down.” So, I wrote it. But there were already signs that something typed on our machine had gotten to the KGB. Since that was the case, Borys Orlovskyi, who knew a bit more about these things, pried off all the letters and was already going around workshops to see where he could get new ones installed. But he hadn't managed to do it yet, and I had no way to type it. And there was little time. I gave Ivan Koliaska the manuscript. And then, a search at Ivan Koliaska’s place, and they grab my manuscript there too. Ivan Koliaska said that someone had given it to him in the evening on the street when it was dark, a stranger, he couldn’t make out who the person was, and so he didn’t give me up.
The KGB was looking for me and finally found me around 1972. Starting in 1973, two future main witnesses appeared at my home, both where I lived and where I worked at RATAU. And at this time, I was more closely connected with Oles Shevchenko. I met Stepan Khmara, but that was a distant acquaintance. But with Oles Shevchenko, the connection was practically daily. Stepan Khmara produced the seventh issue of the *Ukrainian Herald* with his acquaintances from Chervonohrad and Lviv, and Oles Shevchenko took part in the next one. Then Oles Shevchenko suggested I write something for a future issue, and I wrote an article, “The Class Structure of Soviet Society.” I argued that this Soviet society was not only class-based but also caste-based. There are two classes: the class of the party-state bureaucracy and the class of the working people. The party-state bureaucracy was the nomenklatura leadership at all levels. For example, a regional official would tremble and stand at attention before the top leaders. But he did not consider the people below him to be full-fledged human beings. For him, they were almost a caste of untouchables.
My connection with Oles Shevchenko, with Stepan Khmara’s *Ukrainian Herald*, was around 1973–75. Most likely, in 1974. At that time, Stepan Khmara was already being searched. It came to me later.
So that material of mine didn't get out. It was being prepared for the tenth issue. Khmara's first one was numbered as the seventh-eighth, although Khmara himself called it the seventh, and abroad they added the eighth because it was too large compared to Chornovil's previous *Ukrainian Heralds*. And its content was different. I even liked it better that Stepan Khmara’s was written: “Published in occupied Ukraine,” and everything was called by its proper name, without any diplomacy. And in my article, I don’t think there was anything diplomatic either. It directly assessed what kind of regime it was.
I was arrested in 1980.
They conducted the first, secret search of my place in 1976, because they had received information that my secretary desk was stuffed with samvydav. And so it was. I noticed that they were following my family members. For instance, in the morning my daughter would take her brothers to kindergarten before school. Then she would go to school, and she noticed that people were following her, watching where she went. And if they’re following the children, it means they want to conduct a secret search of my place. They want to know where everyone is. Since that was the case, I gathered all the most dangerous items for me. The KGB later found some things anyway—things I had forgotten where I’d hidden them. But I took the most important things in a backpack and carried them out.
I carried them out with the idea of burying them in the root cellar (our neighbors let us use their cellar). I decided to bury it under the potatoes in the corner. But when I was leaving, two men were sitting there, smoking. They followed me. My wife, Mariia Shevchenko, saw them. She ran ahead of them and told me they were coming. Well, if that’s the case, then: “I’ll know they’re following me. You go home, and I’ll figure a way out of this.” When she turned back, one of the two followed her. The other one and I ducked into a grocery store—this is on Zodchykh Street, not far from the current high-speed tram. Back then, the No. 18 tram still ran there. I didn’t go to the No. 18 tram stop because I saw that one was following me and the other was following my wife. I ran between the buildings all the way to the department store. That’s two stops away. I see that he runs pretty well too. I run through one set of buildings, the agent through another. I jumped on the No. 18 tram there, and the agent jumped on too. But I got on through one door, and he through another. He tried to keep some distance from me everywhere. When the tram reached the Vidradnenskyi market (it turned there), I jumped off. I see that he jumped off too, but he’s turning his head, looking for me. He doesn’t see me. And while he doesn’t see me, I jump back on the tram. He ran around the tram (and there were a lot of people, it was near the market) and is looking for me among the people who ran to the market. And I’m riding on the same tram.
I buried everything where I needed to. I’m riding back with an empty backpack. Just in case, I get off not on that side, but on the opposite one. I see both agents sitting there, looking very sad. They looked at me—the backpack was empty. They missed me. Later, at the KGB, they asked me: “What did you do? How did you manage that?” This was after 1980, when I was arrested.
When they conducted the search, they went into that secretary desk. But instead of samvydav, I had already filled it with clippings. I used to work at RATAU, so I had many clippings on various topics that were consonant with the materials I wrote; they were in folders by different topics. And in 1976, I had switched to working at the “Elektronmash” plant in the department of scientific and technical information. Because a new director had come to RATAU then—a man sent there by Malanchuk. And Malanchuk sent people in his own image and likeness. In my opinion, those people lacked professional qualities. Ideologically, they were Suslovites to the bone, and besides witch-hunting, I don’t think they knew how to do anything else. I left RATAU. More precisely, we in the foreign information department had agreed that we would all scatter in different directions. But only I left, and the others stayed. They were not happy later that they had stayed.
And with Oles Shevchenko, we continued to stay in touch and exchange information, although we understood that the clouds were gathering over us. Several people had informed me that the KGB was interested in me, even when I was working at RATAU. This was from 1969 to 1976. From 1976 to 1979, I worked in the department of scientific and technical information at “Elektronmash.” That’s where the KGB got me.
V. Ovsiienko: When and how were you arrested? The search, the arrest, the trial—tell us about all that in a little more detail...
V. Shevchenko: The official search was on March 31, 1980. That’s when I could observe what great power the KGB had. They arrested both Stepan Khmara and Oles Shevchenko. They found Oles in a hospital sometime in the second half of that night, at the beginning of April 1. I was officially arrested on April 14. Those two weeks were the procedure for expulsion from the Communist Party. The first time I was brought to the KGB, then I was summoned several times. The final chord—before my arrest, they took me for a conversation with the deputy head of the KGB, General Mukha. General Mukha was in civilian clothes. He, of course, spoke to me in Russian, and I spoke in Ukrainian: “Name who gave you the samvydav and to whom you gave it.” I said: “I’ve forgotten who gave it to me, and I didn’t give it to anyone.” “If you continue like this, I will sign the arrest warrant.” “Well, sign it—what can I say? I didn’t give it to anyone.”
And so they arrested me. To be honest, when I was arrested, I felt a kind of relief. The expulsion from the Party had exhausted me so much. These were commissions where about ten of those old-timer commies would sit, and you’d have to fend them off as if from crossfire. But here it was just one investigator—that was easier.
V. Ovsiienko: Which body expelled you?
V. Shevchenko: I was expelled by the Leningrad Raion Committee of the Communist Party. The first time, they resisted: what does it matter what the KGB says. Then the KGB sent some paper. And what were the arguments? Ever since my time in Sakhalin (I was in Sakhalin from 1960 to 1962), I had the idea to reread Lenin. In my naivety, I thought that the fifth edition of Lenin’s works was complete, since it was called a complete edition. It was only later that I learned that the Russians were planning to publish seven more volumes of forbidden Lenin, of the same size as those 55 volumes. That means there’s a lot of falsification in those volumes. You can take out a certain part, and the material will acquire a completely opposite meaning than it had with the filling that was removed. So at that time, I had the idea to reread all of Lenin. In the first two volumes, I wrote down my impressions. Then I stopped writing them. But the KGB confiscated these impressions from the first two volumes and wrote out for the raion party committee everything I had written there. Then the people at the raion party committee threw up their hands: at this point, they were powerless to save me. (Laughs).
I was in prison until 1987, like all of us. I was in the 37th camp. It’s near Polovynka, in the Chusovskoy Raion of Perm Oblast.
Sometime last year, *Komsomolskaya Pravda* conducted an investigation and wrote that right there in the Chusovskoy Raion, where we were serving our sentences, sometime in the late sixties—up to 1971—ten nuclear explosions for peaceful purposes were carried out. Specifically, the three strongest were in 1971, which covered the entire Perm Oblast with radioactive dust. That’s what was written in *Komsomolskaya Pravda*. But they didn’t write that in 1972, the male political prisoners were transferred from Mordovia precisely there, to the Chusovskoy Raion of Perm Oblast, to the site of the nuclear explosions. The women were left in Mordovia, but the men were transferred there. Another interesting detail in *Komsomolskaya Pravda* was that a fourth explosion was being prepared, and this atomic bomb was placed in a mine at a depth of 130 meters, but the command came not to detonate it, so it remained there, and it’s probably still there. At the time this was written in *Komsomolskaya Pravda*, the atomic bomb was lying there. That mine, by the way, is near the 37th zone; I saw it. When I first saw it, I thought with fear that the zeks would have to work in it.
Imprisonment itself is, of course, a bad thing. I analyzed it and broke it down, what makes it bad. For me, the worst thing about imprisonment was that I was torn away from Ukraine. Here, there would have been Ukrainian radio, even if it was the worst, and maybe a tenth of it was Ukrainian, with the rest being broadcasts from Moscow. On weekends, there were more local Ukrainian programs. And the guards would have been local, and the very air would be our own. But despite this and many other negative things, imprisonment still gave me something that freedom in Soviet conditions could not: I met so many wonderful people in prison! True, they were mostly Russian figures: there was Anatoly Marchenko, there was Yuri Orlov—the professor who created the Moscow Helsinki Group.
I became quite close with Anatoly Marchenko; I even became an unwilling witness to how they sent him to prison, how brutal it was. First, it seemed to me that the decision on what to do with Anatoly Marchenko was not made by the local Chekists, but somewhere in Moscow. Because if there was a violation on my part, or on the part of most others, they would draw up a report in a few minutes and take you to the SHIZO (punishment cell). With him, it always took about three days from what they considered a violation to the punishment. So it was being cooked up somewhere far from the camp. Somewhere far away, evidently, the final decision was also cooked up.
They punished him for someone passing something abroad. He was deprived of all personal visits. I once passed something through my family, although, of course, I denied it, said I had nothing to do with it. Because if I had said I was involved, they would have imprisoned my wife too and wouldn't have given me visits—they would have known what I was about. When the time for a visit came, and they had nothing on hand, they would make up anything just to deprive him of his next visit.
He, unlike everyone else, didn’t work for about a month, maybe; they didn’t give him any work. He sat behind stacks of magazines. He had already looked through this pile, he hadn’t looked through that one yet. He made some notes, worked like a scholar. How did they deprive him of a visit? He loved to sleep after lunch. We had an hour of free time; that was allowed. I didn't use it, but he rested. During this time, a whole gang came, led by a major, the head of the regime. He announced that from that day on, this hour of rest would not be at lunchtime but in the evening before lights-out, and anyone resting now was violating the regime. And although about eight men were lying on their bunks, they didn’t touch anyone—they all ran to Marchenko and immediately drew up a report, depriving him of his visit. Well, he didn’t worry—he knew they deprived him every time.
A year later, when the second visit was approaching, he was already working as an orderly. An orderly is someone who cleans; he has many small duties, but the main thing is to clean. During my time in the camp, there were about six orderlies, and Anatoly Marchenko was the most hardworking person. He did everything as if he were doing it at home. This was on the second floor, where the bosses' rooms and the library and television were. They threw five cigarette butts in the corner and drew up a report that he had cleaned poorly. At this, he flew into a rage and quit his job: if they punish like this, they can do anything. They tried to persuade him for three days, and on the third day, they put him in the SHIZO, and then from the SHIZO they transferred him to the PKT (cell-type premises).
When he didn’t have much time left to finish his six-month PKT sentence, they put me in for some offense. It turned out that they placed me next to the guards’ room. There aren’t many cells in that SHIZO. Marchenko was in the farthest cell, and Mityashin from Petersburg was somewhere in the middle. So, they put me at a certain distance from both of them, but near the guards. Well, since I was near them, I could hear what they were saying. The warrant officers and officers spoke to each other in criminal jargon, which confirmed my earlier thought that places of confinement for political prisoners in a totalitarian state are institutions where criminals hold honest people in prison.
One time I heard a phone call and a conversation like this: “Ah, Marchenko? I’ll look now,”—he flips through pages. “Yes, from this date to that date—for refusal to work, from this date to that—for sleeping at the wrong time...” I don’t remember what else. Something about it not being clean, or something like that. In response: “Yes, that’s not much.” After some time, about half an hour later, the DPNK—dezhurnyi pomoshchnik nachalnika kolonii (duty assistant to the colony chief)—comes in, a guy named Luzyanin. He comes to me first: “How are things?” “Well, how are things? Pacing the cell.” I couldn’t tell him that my wife had just secretly passed a note that Vasyl Stus had died in the punishment cell. He ordered them to give me a dustpan and glasses so I could clean. He went to Mityashin, also: “How are things?” He found some disorder there and told the guards to write him up. Then to Marchenko: “Well, how are things, Marchenko?” He says: “Oh, wonderful! I eat chicken every day!” “How are you speaking to me?!” And it started... For insulting an officer—SHIZO. And this was the fourth SHIZO: already enough to put him on trial and send him to prison for several years. And they carried him out of prison; he never came out of there...
V. Kipiani: Tell us how you were released and what you did after that.
V. Shevchenko: My release was unexpected. I believe that Vasyl Ivanovych Ilkiv, the KGB officer who flew to the camp, when he said: “There will be no leniency for you. That democratization is happening in the country. But for you? You will rot here until you repent, until you get on the path of correction; there will be no talk of amnesty.” But one day—I think I was listening to a symphony concert, because we weren’t allowed to watch everything on TV there: there was a schedule at the guard post of what we could and couldn’t watch, they turned it on and off there... A symphony concert was allowed. So I was sitting there. That Luzyanin came and said: “Don’t go to bed, watch your television.” I tell him: “But I’ll oversleep. I have to get up at six in the morning to work in the kitchen.” “It’s nothing. I told you...” After some time, they announce to me: “Get your things ready!” “All my things or just some necessities?” “All your things.” Well, if that’s the case, I gather everything, get to the guard post, and at the guard post, they tell me to select what I need for three days and leave the rest here. “Do it quickly!”
And when they put us in the car, for the first time they combined us with people from the 35th zone... There were four of us, and I was the only one from the large zone, and they never even put us together with the small zone—this was something different... They never did that—so something was already broken. They took us to the Chusovaya station, put us in a compartment car. In each compartment, there were two zeks—but there were still guards. But the fact that they were taking us not in a “stolypin” car, but in a regular one, even with guards, also said something. Someone from the 35th zone was the first to say that it was an amnesty.
V. Ovsiienko: Who was with you and when was this? Please.
V. Shevchenko: It was around January 20, 1987. They brought us—it was the night of the 21st. Again, unusual: there was no shmon (search). Always, when you were brought to any place, the first thing was a shmon. But here, no shmon. Straight to the cell: “Until tomorrow. Here, take a look.”
V. Ovsiienko: This was where—in Perm?
V. Shevchenko: This was in Perm, in Perm.
V. Ovsiienko: And who was with you?
V. Shevchenko: I don’t remember now, because these were people I didn’t know. They were people from the small zone, and I was from the large zone. So I didn’t know these people, and the people from the 35th zone were strangers to me then.
When they brought us to Perm, they immediately started calling us to the prosecutor. He says: “There is a possibility of being released, of gaining freedom. But you have to write a petition.” “And what do I have to write there?” “Write that you will not engage in activities that harm the Soviet state.” Well, I always thought—so I think to myself—that the more democratic a state is, the stronger it is. This means that what I was doing was for the benefit of the state, not to its detriment. So, I will continue to act for the benefit of the state, so that it becomes more democratic. I sign. “All right, fine.”
Maybe most of the prisoners signed. I don’t know what they were thinking, but a few didn’t sign. So they started shuffling us with those who didn’t sign, so that new people would be with them. Maybe someone would persuade them to sign.
They held us until February 5. Sometime before that, they brought our things from the camp. There were a lot of magazines, so I threw many of them away. What I could take with me—one backpack and something in my hands—I took with me. I took about two-thirds, and left a third of the magazines. On February 5, they gave us tickets for Perm–Moscow. They gave us whatever money we had, minus the cost of the tickets. I had about three hundred rubles. And onto the train. In one car, there were about thirty prisoners. I have the impression that they packed about three such cars to Moscow. I remember Zorian Popadiuk there. The reason I remember is that he had a Bible. That was the first time I saw a Ukrainian Bible in his hands. I had never seen a Ukrainian Bible in my life before that and didn’t even know it existed, because only the Russian one was allowed.
When we arrived in Kyiv, they released Oles Shevchenko a little later. We started organizing in the summer of 1987. The Ukrainian Culturological Club began to form. There was already samvydav, you could already speak at the Club. People spoke about the famine, about Ukrainian orthography, about the Kharkiv orthography. That’s what I remember from my speeches. I probably had more there. And then the Ukrainian Helsinki Union was created. I was published in Chornovil’s *Ukrainian Herald*. Chornovil liked my piece on the restoration of the Ukrainian and Belarusian Orthodox and Catholic churches. It was published and printed widely abroad. So he, Chornovil, brought me into the editorial board of the *Ukrainian Herald*. And then he announced the restoration of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group and brought the entire editorial staff into it. So that’s how I ended up in the Ukrainian Helsinki Group.
And when in Moscow... What was it called? Democratic Union, or something? Their emissaries came to Ukraine to agitate for work in the DU; they created their own circle here. At that point, we quickly began to create the Ukrainian Helsinki Union. Credit must be given to Chornovil, probably with Mykhailo Horyn. I heard and understood that the two of them drafted that document... What was it called? The Principles...
V. Ovsiienko: “Declaration of Principles.”
V. Shevchenko: “Declaration of Principles of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union.”
V. Ovsiienko: Bohdan Horyn also took part in writing it.
V. Shevchenko: And then samvydav, collecting funds for the release of or help for Stepan Khmara, who was imprisoned again. There were many cases by then.
Now I am in Rukh. True, I don’t take an active part now because I am very busy with the newspaper *Nasha Vira*.
Perhaps that’s all for today. If there are any questions, I might be able to recall something, but it seems I’ve covered the main points.
V. Ovsiienko: I would like you to name the dates more precisely. But they are recorded in the biographical note.
V. Shevchenko: The creation of the Ukrainian Helsinki Union? That must have been 1988. About a year of Ukrainian culturological thaw.
V. Ovsiienko: It was announced in Lviv on July 7, 1988. Mykhailo Horyn and Bohdan Horyn spoke there. Chornovil didn’t manage to. But he distributed the “Declaration of Principles” there. That is considered the day the UHU was founded.
V. Shevchenko: And in Kyiv, near the stadium, when the UHU was being created? That must have been after that.
V. Ovsiienko: Yes, after that. The Kyiv branch was created a little later. The Lviv one too, later.
V. Kipiani: Did you participate in the first meeting of the UHU Kyiv branch at the stadium?
V. Shevchenko: I did, I did. We gathered then in Oles Shevchenko’s courtyard and walked there, to the stadium.
V. Ovsiienko: That must have been sometime in July or August. I probably wasn’t there yet... I was only released on August 21, 1988.
V. Shevchenko: It was summer. But which month, I don’t recall...
V. Ovsiienko: It’s alright, we’ll go to Oles Shevchenko now and ask him. He can’t recall that date either. And it’s a historic date—when the UHU Kyiv branch was founded.
V. Kipiani: Maybe the KGB knows?
V. Ovsiienko: The KGB, of course, knows.
V. Shevchenko: Of course, it knows.
V. Ovsiienko: Alright, Vitaliy, thank you.
V. Shevchenko: Yes, and thank you. Forgive me if I said anything wrong.