An Interview with Bohdan KLYMCHAK
(Last proofread on 02.17.2008)
V. Ovsiyenko: January 21, 2000, Bohdan Klymchak in his apartment in Lviv tells his story to Vasyl Ovsiyenko.
B. Klymchak: I am Bohdan Klymchak. I was born on July 22, 1937, in the village of Sebychiv, Sokal district, now Lviv Oblast—at that time, of course, it was under Poland. I am a writer, a long-term political prisoner of the GULAG, as they say. I have two small books published—*Oasis-Mountain* in 1994 and *An Updated Decalogue for the Enslaved Ukrainian* in 1999.
My biography, understandably, began in the war years. In those war years, everything started with raids—from the Poles, the Polish Home Army, as well as from the Soviets, the Muscovites, who were equally hostile to us, the native Ukrainians, particularly the residents of the Sokal region. In 1946, or just before that year, an agreement was made between Poland and Muscovy to give our district to Poland, but before that, to cleanse the district—a cleansing and scorching, meaning they deported people, ethnic Ukrainians, to the Ternopil region, and some Polish families were deported to Poland—or maybe they were left there, I don't remember that well.
In 1946, we were also deported, after being held for two months at a transit point near the town of Belz. Immediately after us, perhaps with or without fighting, I don't know that well, they burned down all the villages. All the villages were destroyed, and we, thus, were deported to the Ternopil region and ended up in the urban-type settlement of Hrymailiv, Ternopil Oblast.
V. Ovsiyenko: And what was your family like at that time, when you were being deported?
B. Klymchak: When we were deported the first time (because there was a second deportation in 1949), the family consisted of my mother...
V. Ovsiyenko: And what was your mother’s name?
B. Klymchak: Maria Ivanivna was her real name, but in documents, it was Fedorivna, after her stepfather. And my father was no longer alive—he died around 1943. Unfortunately, the information is conflicting—whether it was 1943 or 1941. And he is buried, of course, in Sebychiv. A few years ago, I installed a tombstone there; it stands in the cemetery in Sebychiv. My mother and I—that means: the eldest sister Klavdia, the younger brother Myron—younger than her, then sister Olha, brother Ivan, and me, Bohdan. And one brother, the eldest of the brothers after my sister, was taken to work in Germany around 1942, and from Germany, after the war, he emigrated to the West and ended up in Canada. He lived there only until 1957 and died under mysterious circumstances, perished in a mental institution, although, in fact, he was not sick—I have reason to believe so—but was reported as allegedly sick by relatives, and based on the relatives' report, he was taken to a psychiatric hospital, subjected to torture, and died there in 1957. I mention this briefly in my autobiography, as I do everything else.
So, from 1946 to 1949, we lived in the Ternopil region. In 1949, my older brother Myron—a member of the OUN—was arrested and sentenced under Article 58 to 25 years, and the rest of us were deported to a special settlement in the Khabarovsk Krai. V. Ovsiyenko: How did this deportation happen?
B. Klymchak: The deportation happened in several stages, if you can call them stages. First, on October 5, if I'm not mistaken, 1949, they took all of us, loaded us onto a peasant cart, and took us from Hrymailiv to the neighboring town of Kopychentsi.
V. Ovsiyenko: Did they let you take anything with you?
B. Klymchak: They allowed us to take food, belongings, clothes. The food was in the form of groats. I especially remember that we had a bag—there was no choice of products, but by chance, we had a small bag of buckwheat groats—and we took that bag. And that was our constant meal, morning, noon, and night—buckwheat groats.
V. Ovsiyenko: And did they warn you that you would be deported, or did they just show up and say, “Pack up?”
B. Klymchak: Well, in the tradition of the time, at four or four-thirty in the morning—bang-bang-bang on the door: “Open up, or we'll break it down!”—they came, gave us half an hour to pack, loaded us onto that cart—whose cart and horse it was, I don't know—maybe our cart and our horse, which was later, of course, taken to the kolkhoz, after they took us away with our own cart and horse—well, that was traditional, nothing new, just a common story.
And so what's next? They kept us—the prison was provisional, that is, some three-story official building—an office, as they call it now. I don't know what was in that building before, some offices. The building was converted into a prison. They kept us in this prison—mostly old women and a few old men, but mostly children. This prison was perhaps not very secure from the point of view of escape, but there was no one to escape—everyone was either old or young, so such a temporary prison was satisfactory.
The conditions in that prison, of course, were horrific. In our cell—I remember the number, 15, I wrote about it in my work “Archives of Memory” in the book *Oasis-Mountain*—in our cell (a former room, now a cell) there were 150 people—mostly children and women. In that prison, in that cell, people were born and people died—that is, the old died, and children were born—this fact is described in the work “Archives of Memory.”
V. Ovsiyenko: So they kept grandfathers, grandmothers, women, and children all together in one cell?
B. Klymchak: You see, there were only a few grandfathers, very feeble old men; the ones who weren't feeble were all eliminated, sentenced, and these were the ones who could barely walk. There were only a few like that in the whole cell, otherwise it was just women and children. The children were also no older than maybe 12–15 years. At that time, in 1949, I was, accordingly, 12 years old.
Harsh conditions... By the way, an unpleasant fact—for that cell of 150 people, there were only 6 slop buckets for us, and those buckets would be overflowing within half a day. People, of course, still used them, both children and women, and it would leak onto the floor under us, as we all lay packed together on the floor—so the conditions were horrific.
We stayed there for exactly one month. Around November 4, they took us for transport, that is, they loaded us into cattle cars, formed a whole train, and took us away. The journey also took exactly a month, and on December 4, 1949, they brought us to our destination—the Khabarovsk Krai, the Lazo Raion, or as it was also called, the Oborsky Timber Enterprise or the Oborskaya branch line—a railway spur leading into the dense taiga. There, deep in the taiga, right at the end of one railway spur, in a settlement called “poselok Uyarny,” as it was called in Russian, they unloaded us. There were only 6 residential barracks there; in each section of a barrack, several families lived together on homemade bunks. There was nothing besides six barracks in that settlement, Uyarny. We lived there until the spring or summer of 1950. There was no work there, no conditions for life. Our single bag of buckwheat groats saved us. By the way, we bartered, as they say now, exchanging buckwheat for other groats, because other families had other types of groats with them. In this way, we created some variety, otherwise one could go mad—eating only buckwheat every morning, noon, and night. But we made our own exchanges.
V. Ovsiyenko: And during the journey, when they were transporting you, could you cook that groats somehow?
B. Klymchak: No, we didn't cook the groats on the way, because they gave us bread and some kind of borscht according to a ration plan—well, just the usual road swill, and we started cooking the groats only in the Khabarovsk Krai.
So, on December 4, they unloaded us at the final station. We stayed there for about six months and found another, larger settlement, called Station 64th Kilometer, where there were many houses, a store, and work was available, meaning there was an opportunity for those who could work to earn something. We moved there—with the permission of the special commandant's office, of course. We moved there and settled down in one of the vacant sections of a barrack. We lived there for several years.
In 1953, I finished 7th grade. I lost two years, by the way, because of those relocations, but I finished in 1953. By that time, around 1952, we had managed to move from that 64th kilometer, with the permission of the special commandant's office, to the Durmin station, or in other words, the 61st kilometer. I actually finished 7th grade at the Durmin station. And there, we first settled in a small train car, and then we built a small room out of old railroad ties, of which there were plenty, such unowned ties just lying around, because the whole system was mismanaged. Even my mother and sisters built that small house. We were already living in that little house. But, after finishing 7th grade in 1953 and seeing an announcement in the newspaper *Magadanskaya Pravda*, or some *Khabarovskaya Pravda*, that they were accepting students for training in Magadan after finishing 7th grade, I submitted my documents there and even, I think, without the permission of the special commandant's office—because he was nowhere to be found, the special commandant—I went to Khabarovsk. In Khabarovsk, I passed the entrance exams and was enrolled in the Magadan Mining College for the profession of “Ore Beneficiation of Non-ferrous Metals,” though at the time I had no idea what that was.
This was without the permission of the special commandant's office, and so I was forced to explain everything retroactively and, so to speak, report why I had gone on my own accord. But, in any case, it went off without any sanctions against me, a boy, in fact. The special commandant's office allowed me to leave for my studies in the summer, on August 25, 1953, by steamship to Magadan. Thus began my studies at the Magadan Mining College, which lasted from 1953 to 1957 inclusive. There, during my studies, as noted in my biography book, I had many conflicts. These conflicts were not only with the special commandant's office, to which I was also registered, but also with the students of that college, because the students were almost all sons of those special commandants who persecuted me and others like me, special settlers.
I had conflicts with those students, and it did not end well for me. In 1957, a case of “Anti-Soviet Agitation” was fabricated against me—I don't know on whose initiative, whether the special commandant's office or those students. I was arrested on June 17. And before that, on June 15, 1957, I had finished my studies, defended my diploma project, received my diploma on the fifteenth, and on the seventeenth, before boarding the steamship to return to the Khabarovsk Krai to my relatives, I was arrested and imprisoned under Article 58-10, “Agitation.” The investigation began.
In my case, the witnesses were 8 students from the Magadan college and 2 7th-grade students from the Khabarovsk Krai, who were also selectively chosen to testify against me. Of those 7th-grade students, only one behaved dishonorably and said: “Yes, he engaged in anti-Soviet agitation…”—something to that effect, while the other gave no bad testimony against me. This second one was Yaroslav Kushpet, a friend of mine, and I am pleased to mention his name, as someone who did not disgrace himself, in contrast to the other—let that name be forgotten. Well, and the eight students from the Magadan college, all as one, testified furiously and hostilely against me and contributed to my conviction.
At that time, to be honest, I held a rather liberal, moderate position. I even pleaded partially guilty, admitting that I had made some false statements. This was apparently taken into account, and they gave me not 7, but 5 years of imprisonment.
And what's next? Imprisonment began in September 1957. In about 3 months, both the investigation and the trial were concluded, and I was sent right there, in the Magadan Oblast, in the Tenkinsky District, to a camp—the settlement was called Vetreny.
V. Ovsiyenko: Wait! In the Tenkinsky District, in the settlement of Matrosov, Vasyl Stus was in exile.
B. Klymchak: Yes, yes, but at a different time, as far as I know.
V. Ovsiyenko: After him—Zoryan Popadyuk was in that settlement of Matrosov. Stus was there from March 1977 to August 1979, and Zoryan Popadyuk was there after Stus, from June 1980.
B. Klymchak: So, 20 years after me. And the Matrosov mine itself is quite far from the Vetreny settlement; they are at different ends of the Tenkinsky District, because I remember from the map where everything is located, and I can clarify that they are not close to each other.
V. Ovsiyenko: And the districts there are like our oblasts.
B. Klymchak: Yes, that's understandable. They are in different ends of the district. This settlement of Vetreny is on the bank of the Kolyma River—not far from the bank, a few kilometers away, in a ravine was that camp of the Vetreny settlement. And I was in the settlement of Matrosov, by the way, even before 1957 as a free man, that is, as a special settler. I was visiting some special settlers who were in the settlement of Matrosov. Only for one day, just like that, visiting some of our Ukrainians there; they received me nicely for one day, I spent the night.
So, my imprisonment began in that settlement of Vetreny. One of the twenty-five-year-termers met me there very well. Almost everyone there was sentenced to 25 years. There were only a few sentenced like me, for 5 or 7 years. They mocked me—by the way, I mentioned this in the story “Oasis”: “What, you came for five years, they might kick you out tomorrow, but we've got twenty-five...” Understandably, psychologically they had a reason... But in fact, it turned out a little differently. A commission had previously reduced their terms to 15 (not 25, but now 15), some got 10, some 12, some 15 years were left, and they were soon finishing them and were even released earlier than me. Although I only had 5 years, they were already finishing their 15 or 12 years and got out earlier than me, even though they had laughed that I, supposedly, had come to the camp with such a childish term.
Pavlo Terpak, who is still living in the city of Kalush, Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast, met me especially well there. I remember how well he received me. He supported me. I owe him a lot in many ways.
We served a little more than one year there. In the spring of 1958, I made a childish attempt to escape. Although I was a prisoner without convoy guards, since it was a remote gorge, attempting to escape there was a joke. With my five-year term, I worked without guards outside the zone. I was entrusted with a horse and cart to transport firewood three hundred meters from the zone to the kitchen. Taking advantage of the right of being without guards, I, along with another, a Muscovite, by the way, arranged an escape, and on May 4, 1958, we tried to escape. After work, he, a prisoner without guards, and I, a prisoner without guards, did not return to the zone but darted off in the opposite direction. But we didn't get far, because they had figured out our preparation for escape, with its primitive, childish stock of food, they had taken precautions and realized we were planning to escape, and they caught us 700 meters from the camp and brought us back. They beat us a little there, admittedly, but not too badly.
An investigation began, but we stubbornly—since we had not yet left the road, we hadn't gone off-road yet, but were just about to, but hadn't managed to turn off the road, we were heading towards the settlement—and so we said: “We were just going to the settlement to see the girls.” They didn't charge us with escape; we got away with a stay in the ShIZO for some number of days. It’s true, we went on a hunger strike, and the other prisoners there stood up for us: “Well, they're just kids, why are you paying attention to them?” It's not out of the question that the camp commander was a bit kinder, so they didn't add to our term for this "calf's escape," as I call it. It was, of course, a foolish escape, unwise, childish.
After that, the regime was tightened. Thus, we were the cause of the regime being tightened for everyone, because there had been an escape attempt. But it didn't last long, only a few months, because an order came to liquidate this camp—and this camp was the last political camp on the Kolyma in 1958, all the others had been liquidated long ago—an order came to liquidate this last camp as well, and to deport all of us to the Taishet route in the Irkutsk Oblast. Sometime in November or December—I don't remember anymore—in 1958, they loaded us onto a steamship and took us to Nakhodka, and from Nakhodka by special train (Stolypin cars, there were also cattle cars) they took us to the Taishet route. I was in several different camps there, starting with the strict regime—for the escape attempt, it was still on my record. They transported me in a Stolypin car as particularly dangerous, one who tried to escape from the camp. And they took us to a punishment camp on the Taishet route—that was number 26, the settlement of Anzyoba. We stayed there for a few months. There I met a political prisoner who was significant for me, Onufriy Kulak, to whom I dedicated the story “Oasis.” He was arrested in 1956, spent all 25 years in prison, and was only released in 1981. After his return, he was again persecuted by the KGB gang and died in 1982 or 1983 in his native village of Huziyiv near Bolekhiv. Onufriy Kulak was a very decent person. Petro Duzhyi was also there. At that time, I was on good terms with him, but later our relationship cooled somewhat. It is undesirable, of course, to specify, as Petro Duzhyi is already deceased.
So, we stayed at camp number 26 for several months, then were transferred to other camps. I was also at the fourth, the eleventh, and the tenth. We stayed there until 1960, and in 1960 a new order came: to liquidate the political camps on the Taishet route as well. They loaded us all onto trains again and took us to Mordovia. In Mordovia, I was at camp number 17. Besides the seventeenth, however, I was also at the fifth, again with that same Petro Duzhyi. From camp 17, in 1962, upon completing my sentence, I was released.
V. Ovsiyenko: And camp 17—that’s the Ozyorny settlement. There was camp 17 and 17-A, so which one were you in?
B. Klymchak: I don’t remember the numbers, but there were two camps there—a men's and a women's—that’s how I remember it.
V. Ovsiyenko: So, a large camp, right? Because 17-A was small.
B. Klymchak: The small one was the women's camp. At that time it was the women's camp, and we were in the large camp.
V. Ovsiyenko: I see. Because I was in 17-A much later, in 1975–1976.
B. Klymchak: So, that was probably the former women's camp. It's about 300-400 meters away from the men's camp. So, in 1962, on June 15, I was released and returned to Ukraine. By that time, my relatives had also returned from exile. We were again living in the urban-type settlement of Hrymailiv.
Well, I found some work, but of course, it was manual labor; they wouldn't hire me for anything else with my post-imprisonment documents. At first, I was on a construction site, then I worked as a locksmith somewhere. Another неприятність [unpleasantness] awaited me at that locksmith job, I think in Chervonohrad at some electrical assembly plant, where the KGB tried to frame me for some sabotage and give me a new prison term. But their evidence didn't hold up, so I wasn't imprisoned again.
However, in 1963, I myself made a big mistake in my personal life: I married a person who was completely incompatible with me, antagonistic, if one can say so, and that marriage lasted only 14 months. A daughter was born and, of course, after the divorce, alimony payments began, which lasted for 15 and a half years. And my earnings were very limited, 70 rubles, and from those 70 rubles, only 50 remained. I lived on that little money.
This continued until my next imprisonment in 1978.
I didn't mention that in 1958 I wrote my first short story, “24 Hours in a Prisoner’s Life,” which was later lost and then restored in 1961. And from 1962 to 1972, I wrote 6 lyrical miniatures, some of which were completely lost; I even forgot the title of one. And in 1973, I began a series of politically oriented short stories. In them, I reflected on the past, present, and perhaps the future of Ukraine. In 1976, I wrote the short story “Oasis,” which, by the way, gave the title to the entire book *Oasis-Mountain*. To a certain extent, it can be considered my most important work. The plot of this story, “Oasis,” served as the idea for creating a symbolic pantheon of Ukraine. By the way, to this day, I have a meter-sized model made of plywood; it's here in my apartment. In miniature, this model is one centimeter to one meter, in that scale.
What next? Life from 1962 to 1978, until my second imprisonment, was very hard, filled with conflicts with the KGB, with propiskas and expulsions from the registry, moving from one oblast to another. I wandered a lot, traveled through various oblasts. In early 1965, I went to Turkmenistan to assess the possibility of crossing the border. Even back then, in 1965, 13 years before actually crossing the border, I traveled to inspect the border, the border area. I saw little there at the time, but my first trip with the aim of violating the Soviet border was in 1965. After that, as I said, I was in different oblasts, at different jobs. I mean in Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhia, Cherkasy, Kamianets-Podilskyi. I was in many places, all over Ukraine. And everywhere, of course, I only had the worst, low-paying jobs, so my life was pretty miserable.
This continued until 1978. In the meantime, as I already mentioned, in the seventies, starting from 1973, a series of anti-Soviet, as they were called, works was written, politically directed against the existing empire. There was, of course, no way to publish them. And with these works, I decided in 1978 to try once more to cross the border into Iran, and from Iran to Great Britain. In Iran, my goal was to get to the British embassy in Tehran. I had with me the works that were written by that time—these were “24 Hours in a Prisoner’s Life,” “The Problem of Planet BK 666/3,” “Tango Italiano,” “Memories of the Future,” “Say That I’m Dead,” “Oasis,” “The Immoral Code of the Builder of Communism,” and I think something else. And also some translations. Not mine, but translations of other favorite works: Hesse’s “Steppenwolf,” Seneca’s “Selected Letters,” Hemingway’s “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”
After crossing the border in 1978—which was, of course, preceded by long preparation—I asked for help from the Iranian gendarmerie, which I found there with great difficulty. In contrast to the Soviets, who guard their border with Iran very diligently, I didn't find a single border guard for a full 20 kilometers on their side.
V. Ovsiyenko: And the interesting details: how did you cross that border? How did you manage it?
B. Klymchak: The border crossing, I believe, was successful for me by chance, because by chance I managed not to leave any tracks. The method of crossing the border is described in the short story “Oasis.” To describe it in detail without visual aids, that is, how exactly I crossed, is simply impossible, so I am forced to limit myself to saying that I managed to cross the border by chance, without leaving tracks. And only because there were Soviet agents in Iran who informed the Soviet border guards that a fugitive had arrived here, asking “what are you looking at?”—there were corresponding telegrams from the Soviet border agency with a demand: “Return him! He is a dangerous criminal, a terrorist, a bandit, a drug addict.” They hung whatever they wanted on me, just to scare the Iranians and force them to return me.
And they, of course, returned me, although not immediately, but after holding me and taking me from the place where I crossed the border to the large city in northeastern Iran, Mashhad. In that Mashhad, they held me in prison for, I think, another 8 days, so in total I was there for 9 days. They conducted a brief investigation, reported the situation, obviously, about who I was, to Tehran, to the Shah—at that time the Shah was still ruling Iran, and the Shah's chancellery or the Shah himself decided not to aggravate relations with the Soviets and to return the dangerous terrorist, drug addict, rapist, etc., back.
Thus, on October 1, 1978, I was handed back to the Soviet authorities at the border. Accordingly, I was charged under Article 62 of the Criminal Code of Turkmenistan, which meant “Treason to the Motherland.” Later, after a few months, I was transported to Lviv for the continuation of the investigation. In Lviv, I was accordingly charged with Article 62 as well, but of the Ukrainian Code—“Anti-Soviet Agitation and Propaganda.”
V. Ovsiyenko: Ah, so you betrayed two peoples—the Turkmen and the Ukrainian?
B. Klymchak: No, not quite. I betrayed the Turkmen people, but among the Ukrainian people, I conducted anti-Soviet propaganda, which is a bit lighter than betraying the dear Turkmen people.
So, the investigation lasted from October 1, 1978, to June 18, 1979, when the trial took place. But during that time, they also took me for a forensic medical examination to Moscow, to the well-known psychiatric institute. What is it called?
V. Ovsiyenko: The Serbsky Institute.
B. Klymchak: The Serbsky Institute, yes, yes. And they held me there not for a month, but for a double term, 2 months, because there was a suspicion that if someone is anti-Soviet, then maybe he is sick, because a normal person cannot be anti-Soviet. They tested me there for two months; I categorically refused to participate in their foolish experiments. I don't know if that was good, but in any case, they declared me sane and sent me back. On June 18, 1979, I was sentenced by the Lviv Regional Court to 15 years in strict-regime camps and 5 years of exile.
I ended up in a camp, of course, in the Perm Oblast, VS-389, initially in camp No. 36...
V. Ovsiyenko: Kuchino.
B. Klymchak: Yes, the settlement of Kuchino, because I don’t remember the names of the settlements well anymore. Then, about a year later, I was transferred to camp No. 35, the settlement of... Ostankino?..
V. Ovsiyenko: The Tsentralny settlement... There was also Polovinka... 35 is the Vsesvyatskaya station, Tsentralny settlement.
B. Klymchak: Ah, Vsesvyatskaya—see? So, to the Vsesvyatskaya station, camp 35, where I spent... how long there?... a couple of years. In 1981, due to my refusals, a conflict with the administration—I won't go into the reasons—maybe the denial of visits or correspondence, or the use of the camp store… I don’t remember the reason, but a conflict began, and in 1981 I was sentenced to 3 years of imprisonment in the special prison in the city of Chistopol in Tataria. So, in 1981, I was sent by transport to Chistopol, where I spent, accordingly, 3 years in the Chistopol special prison.
In that prison, by the way, I met the famous Jewish political prisoner Sharansky, Natan Sharansky—I spent maybe a year with him together in the same cell. He, by the way, left two pages of memories about me in his book. I happened to read it, but I don't have that book anymore. Our relations were good, and I must admit—a matter of honor requires this—that he fed me with oatmeal porridge, which he couldn't eat because he was well-fed in his childhood, and that matters a lot, and it didn't agree with him, so I ate his portion of porridge, which he would have otherwise thrown away, because I was eating very poorly there, I had no assistance, they didn't send me any food products—it was forbidden. For refusing to work, I was mostly kept on a reduced food ration. So, I was hungry all the time there. And that's why I gladly ate Mr. Sharansky's porridge when I was in the same cell with him.
In total, I spent 7 months there on reduced food rations. The conditions, of course, were difficult... There, once by chance, due to a mistake by the guards, I met Yuriy Shukhevych. They were leading me and someone else from my cell from the exercise yard, and they were leading him to the yard, and we met at the exit of the prison. Of course, Shukhevych himself did not see me (Y. Shukhevych went blind there.—V.O.), but I saw him, and we managed to exchange a few words. This was due to a mistake by the guards, though that rarely happens—they are very careful to ensure there are no such breaches.
I served my time there until 1984; my three years in the Chistopol special prison ended, then I was sent back to camp VS-389/35, where I started working as a cleaner of metal shavings in the lathe shop. I worked for several years. In 1989, due to a conflict with the administration, namely the confiscation of two letters (and letters were the only thing I had left, other things were forbidden, no material aid was given, there were never any visits)—as a sign of protest against the confiscation of two of my letters (from Odarka Husyak, by the way—she was the only person with whom I corresponded, although she is not a relative, she simply wrote to me out of compassion). Because of the confiscation of those letters, I stopped working, and from September 21, 1989, a new, long, almost year-long series of stays in punishment cells and PKT began. During that year, from September 21, 1989, to the summer of 1990, I spent about 200 days, one after another, in the ShIZO, with small breaks. This was the last year. And in total, during my time in the concentration camps, this count of stays in the ShIZO reached 590 days. Plus 10 months of PKT, 7 months on reduced food rations in Chistopol.
I want to emphasize that, at least from my point of view, in terms of sophisticated torture, Gorbachev’s regime was the harshest of all previous regimes. Although under Stalin physical torture was used against political prisoners, sometimes criminals from general-population camps were incited against political prisoners to slaughter them, to destroy them, psychologically, through the destruction of the spirit and sophisticated persecution, Gorbachev's regime surpassed all others. Because it was already based on the very latest research on influencing a subjugated prisoner. These are sophisticated tortures. In its sophistication, Gorbachev's regime was the most difficult—at least, for me.
V. Ovsiyenko: Mr. Bohdan, and why were you released so late? The political prisoners from the strict regime were already being released starting around January-February 1987, and in 1988 even the special-regime prisoners were released. Why did they keep you?
B. Klymchak: A perfectly correct, pertinent question, and I'm glad to hear it, because an important detail needs to be clarified here. Around 1987—I'm not sure, I'm just orienting by your date—around 1987, some piece of paper appeared, or an oral notification from the camp administration, that it was enough to write some kind of application saying “I ask to be released”—the best option: “because I feel unwell”—as long as the word “I ask” was said. Because I feel unwell, because I am sick, because I am innocent—just write “I ask,” and you will be released. I wrote nothing of the sort. I stubbornly stood my ground, did not humble myself, and asked for nothing. Many others—I cannot know exactly how all the others were released, what exactly they wrote, or if maybe someone did not write anything and was released on their own accord—I don't know, but at that time, the method of that “I ask” was used. Someone would write a little note, “I ask...” I'm not even talking about the snitches—they, of course, were released—but some people, I don't know who exactly, were released thanks to writing in time: “I ask to be released because I will not fight against the Soviet government” or “I am not guilty” or “I am sick,” etc. I wrote nothing like that, but on the contrary, as I already said, in 1989 I began a series of protests, refusals to work, for which I suffered long and tediously in the ShIZO. Because they confiscated two of my letters and I refused to work—they kept me in the ShIZO for almost a whole year.
V. Ovsiyenko: At that time, there were reports in the Soviet press that zone No. 35 was visited by foreign journalists or some representatives. (See *Moscow News*, No. 52, 1988.—V.O.). Did you see anyone there, were you shown to them?
B. Klymchak: Of course. Not only visited... I also wrote about this visit and my participation in it in the book *Oasis-Mountain*. But, most importantly, I have this film with me, can you imagine? Here it is, in the cupboard, half a meter away from here. A film made by the French and sent to me by members of Amnesty International from Holland, Maiia Graven-sande. So, Maiia Graven-sande, a member of the Dutch branch of Amnesty International, sent me this film. By the way, she not only sent this film, she also helped me a lot financially, so I owe her a great deal in this regard. This film, as I already said, is here with me. It can be watched on a VCR through a television.
V. Ovsiyenko: And how many minutes does it last?
B. Klymchak: You see, this film is a full-length feature, it lasts, I think, about two hours, or an hour and a half. It was made on the order of Jewish organizations, and it has an emphasis on the oppressed Jews who were with me at that time. At that time, in 1990, I was the last of the Ukrainian political prisoners, and the rest were either Jews or Muscovites. So, it lasts an hour and a half, but it's a film about the entire repressed or somehow rights-infringed Jewish population of the Soviet Union. The first approximately 15 minutes of that film are dedicated to the stay of those three Frenchmen in the camp and the filming of the entire camp—the premises, and the daily routine from reveille to lights-out. Meal times, being led to work—that is, the entire daily cycle of a prisoner’s life is recorded. Of course, only fragments are included in the film; it lasts 15 minutes.
V. Ovsiyenko: And you also feature in it?
B. Klymchak: I feature, I think, in four or five episodes. I speak, I answer various questions. It's impossible to retell it, you have to watch it, but I don't have a VCR, so it's impossible to record it right now, but if we are somewhere where there is a VCR, we can listen to it and copy fragments from there.
V. Ovsiyenko: But it's interesting, how did the camp administration react to that? Who was the chief there then?
B. Klymchak: The chief was Major Osin. How did they react? Of course, it was all carefully prepared in advance, cleaned, repaired, a major renovation took place for six months before the arrival of those French journalists! For six months, they painted everything, scrubbed, cleaned, issued new blankets and linen—what didn't they do! Well, understandable—a Soviet showcase.
V. Ovsiyenko: And did they take it all back after the French left?
B. Klymchak: No, I think they didn't. But that was when there was only a handful of us left. By the time the French arrived, there were only about 40 of us.
V. Ovsiyenko: And when was that filming, in which month?
B. Klymchak: Just a moment. The filming took place on August 6 or 8, 1989. I don’t remember, I’d have to check the book. (In the book, it is written that on December 8, 1988, camp VS-389/35 was visited by the former editor of The New York Times, A. Rosenthal, and his companions K. Fitzpatrick and F. Taubman. And six months later, French journalists arrived.—Bohdan Klymchak. Oasis-Mountain.—Lviv: Poklyk Sumlinnia, 1994.—P.178.—V.O.). Yes, possibly in August. I would have to look it up to be precise, I don't remember offhand. Well, maybe it's not important. Of course, the authorities were suspicious, they strongly insisted that we behave well, they conducted various agitations beforehand, tried to persuade the prisoners not to make any demands, but I was not one of those to make concessions (and this is recorded on the film). At that time, I had 6 points of demand regarding the conditions of political prisoners in the ShIZO, regarding improvements—various demands for the improvement of our conditions and the observance of our rights, so that in the ShIZO they would not starve us or torture us with cold, etc. All those points are noted in the book *Oasis-Mountain* in the section “Political Documents.” I don't remember them by heart.
So, there were these visits. In addition to these visits, there were also visits, I think, before or after that—here my memory fails me, I’d have to reconstruct everything from the book... There were also visits from two American congressmen, Smith and Wolfe. What's important is that I managed, despite all the caution of the guards, to prepare in advance an anti-Soviet—well, relatively anti-Soviet—work, “Archives of Memory,” which had just been written, on August 4–6, 1989. And on August 8, those American congressmen arrived. And those Frenchmen were there on December 8, 1988, I think... Well, alright. So, on August 4-6, I wrote the anti-Soviet work “Archives of Memory,” where, it seems, the deaths of Tykhyi, Lytvyn, Stus, and others are mentioned.
V. Ovsiyenko: And Marchenko?
B. Klymchak: Marchenko, yes, yes. All this is mentioned in “Archives of Memory.” (See pp. 168–171 of the aforementioned book.—V.O.). Freshly written, from the fourth to the sixth, and on the eighth, the congressmen appeared, and I had the ready, copied text on hand, and I miraculously managed to bring it with me. When these congressmen appeared and we were told they were congressmen from the USA, I handed them this work...
V. Ovsiyenko: You just handed it over openly like that?
B. Klymchak: Yes, openly, in the presence of everyone, because where else would I do it in private—that wasn't foreseen.
V. Ovsiyenko: They didn't dare to search them…
B. Klymchak: Yes. But that Osin and all those wardens—they went pale with fear, started mumbling something. As it turned out later—you can see this in the interview I had with those congressmen, because I think four of us were interviewed. Besides me, three other Jews were called in, and in that interview I found out that they had begged him, that congressman: “Let us just take a look, we’ll definitely give it back to you”—that is, they were showing that they allow prisoners to pass things, that they aren’t afraid of anti-Soviet propaganda. “But let us check it, just to know what exactly was passed on. Maybe there’s something really, really, really bad in there.”
Well, they took a look, and of course, they didn’t understand a thing, but neither did the congressmen understand anything in that work written in verse, “Archives of Memory.” He not only didn’t know Ukrainian, but he didn’t know the Muscovite language either—had it been written in Muscovite. And even if he had, the work is quite complex, both literally and technically. You’d need a writer to grasp all those nuances. It’s a two-layered poem, using a poem by a Russian prisoner... Or maybe not a prisoner, but a Russian poet... (Ivan Elagin. – V.O.). Fragments of it echo my poem. The content of that Russian poet’s verse and the content of my work resonate with each other: a stanza of his—a stanza of mine. They create a double meaning. True, this complicates understanding, but for a person well-versed in literature, it would have been clear. But of course, it wasn’t clear to Osin, nor to the rest of the gang of wardens, and it wasn’t clear to the congressmen either. What the congressmen did next with that work, which they didn’t understand, I do not know.
So, there were two visits: the congressmen, and these journalists...
V. Ovsiienko: It was written somewhere that you were held for so long because you had an article for “crossing the border, treason to the Motherland.” It’s interesting: those 40 men who remained in the camp—they probably had something else besides “agitation and propaganda,” too?
B. Klymchak: On the contrary. Only a few had “agitation and propaganda,” maybe even just two—besides me, there was Goldovich, a Jew from Moscow. And all the others were exclusively for “treason to the Motherland.” So, I wasn’t held for crossing the border, but because, as I said, I wouldn’t cooperate, because I categorically and fundamentally declared a refusal to work. And no one but me used the refusal to work—that was the last resort, because it immediately meant one difficult punishment isolation cell (ShIZO) after another, terrible conditions, etc. So, it was because of my sharp, uncompromising behavior with them.
V. Ovsiienko: Still, how did they release you? What were the motives?
B. Klymchak: The motive, of course, is a corresponding decree... Oh, before that, they called me to the special section and showed me: “Look, a petition has arrived from Ukraine to grant you a pardon.” In response, I issued a statement of protest, which is included in the book “Oasis-Mountain”—that there can be no talk of any pardon, as I am a political prisoner, not a criminal, and only criminals can be pardoned or not pardoned. And this statement is included in the... (B. Klymchak passed this statement of 03.13.1990, along with other documents, to the outside world. – V.O.). And when they called me to the special section about the pardon, I made a statement protesting this pardon, and they abandoned that method.
I learned later, perhaps on the day of my release when they showed me the document, that in Kyiv, on their own initiative, they had arranged a so-called case review. That is, they held another trial in absentia.
V. Ovsiienko: And what body did this? The Supreme Court?
B. Klymchak: The Kyiv one... I think, the Supreme Court... Well, you have to look in the book. (On p. 191 of the book, a certificate on the release of B. Klymchak is published: released on November 11, 1990, by a decree of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Ukrainian SSR dated 12.10.1990. – V.O.). So, based on the case review, on November 11, 1990, the court’s decision came to release me early after serving, in fact, 12 years and 2 months of imprisonment—what I actually served, not the 15 I was sentenced to.
V. Ovsiienko: Were you released from there or were you convoyed to Ukraine?
B. Klymchak: No, no, they released me literally from the camp itself, kicked me out, let me out the gates and left me to my fate. And it was about 5 or 10 kilometers to the nearest station, and I had two very heavy, very heavy suitcases...
V. Ovsiienko: Filled with books, I imagine.
B. Klymchak: Filled with books, so much so that I could barely lift them and move them half a meter. They dumped me, probably watching from the window of their guardhouse to see what I would do with them. A 5-kilometer journey...
V. Ovsiienko: And did you have any money?
B. Klymchak: They gave me money, yes, yes. I had money with me that I had earned over 10 years—1100 rubles, and they gave me that money. But what good was that money? There was no transport, nothing at that Vsesviatska or whatever it was called. So, having left the camp, I started on foot, stopping every two meters to carry those heavy suitcases. Well, I walked for about 200 meters, looked back, and thought—well, nothing will come of this. By evening, I’ll just get lost in the woods—the nearest forest is half a kilometer away—and that will be the end of it. And then I'll have to freeze to death. I stopped, but they were probably watching from the window, laughing at me...
By the way, during my release, Osin tried to offer me his hand, for me to shake it. I immediately made a sharp statement that I don’t shake hands with criminals. That’s why they held a grudge against me even during my release. And they watched for an hour or two as I struggled with those suitcases for those 200 meters, stopping every two meters. I covered those 200 meters, then sat down and began to wait. I thought, if a passing car doesn’t come along, I’ll have to go back and spend the night there.
V. Ovsiienko: To ask to be let back into the zone?
B. Klymchak: Well, it seems so. Or in some little room near the zone that the guards might have given me... Well, I don’t know. I began to wait and finally got lucky: either a specially prepared vehicle was coming, or it was a regular one. A bread truck, I think, or something like that. A camp vehicle, so I knew the driver. I had met him in the camp when he brought some food or materials, or something—I don’t remember. That driver pulled up and said, “Come on, I’ll give you a lift to the station”—I don’t remember which station it was, whether to Chusovoy or what it was called. We loaded them up—he loaded them himself, because I couldn’t lift them, I was terribly exhausted, weighing 57 kilograms. They loaded the suitcases, he drove me to the station and dropped me on the railway, literally about 200 meters from the train station. So with great difficulty, I had to once again, with the sweat of my brow, get those 200 meters to the station, to buy a ticket there or validate it. Well, the rest is of little importance, isn’t it?
So, I returned to Kyiv in 1990.
V. Ovsiienko: On what date did you return to Kyiv?
B. Klymchak: Around November 15. I was released on the eleventh, and I arrived around the fifteenth.
V. Ovsiienko: And I remember how you arrived in Kyiv and came to the Polytechnic Institute, straight to a meeting of the Kyiv organization of the Ukrainian Republican Party. In boots, a quilted jacket, a winter hat... That’s how we first met. Although in zone 35, there was a time when I was on the lower floor, in the hospital ward, and you were on the upper floor. You passed us a note with the plan for Oasis-Mountain, but I didn't see you there.
B. Klymchak: Yes, yes, of course. I remember ending up at the URP organization. But I don’t remember it being the Polytechnic Institute. Well, it’s clear that the URP was the first organization that welcomed me properly, and not only welcomed me but immediately gave me housing, thanks to, in particular, the present Mr. Vasyl Ovsiienko and someone else, I don’t remember.
V. Ovsiienko: Petro Rozumnyi.
B. Klymchak: Ah, Petro Rozumnyi.
V. Ovsiienko: The two of us were living there.
B. Klymchak: And I became the third.
V. Ovsiienko: Yes. I asked you after the meeting, “Where are you going to spend the night?” “I have nowhere to go.” “Then come with us.”
B. Klymchak: Ah. I don’t remember that anymore.
V. Ovsiienko: We were the two secretaries of the URP then—Petro Rozumnyi and I—and we were renting a one-room apartment.
B. Klymchak: Yes, yes, somewhere very far on the outskirts. Somewhere past the “Komsomolska” metro station. I stayed there for some time, in that apartment, and then for some reason, I had to move out. I don’t remember why.
V. Ovsiienko: I’ll tell you why—you snored terribly.
B. Klymchak: Yes, yes, I didn’t let anyone sleep.
V. Ovsiienko: And we started asking around to find you another place where you could be alone. Because it was impossible to sleep, and then it was impossible to work.
B. Klymchak: Of course, of course. Yes, yes.
V. Ovsiienko: They found another place for you somewhere...
B. Klymchak: Yes. And it wasn’t just once. That other place was found more than once; I changed apartments 2 or 3 times. But in the end, it came to the point where I had to leave Kyiv altogether, because there was nowhere else to go. There were certain inconveniences in every apartment, and I wasn’t paying for housing. All these reasons together compelled me to make the decision that I had to put an end to it and go somewhere to my relatives or friends. I didn’t plan to return to my relatives because I had a disagreement, a conflict, with them. Why? Because my only living sister, Olha, did not behave very honorably: while I was in the camp, she gave our deceased mother’s house to her son. She registered the house in her son’s name, forging the documents. What proof do I have that the documents were forged? Because during my investigation in 1978-1979, the medical expert commission did not question my mother precisely because she was already not... What is it called?...
V. Ovsiienko: Incapacitated—there is such a term.
B. Klymchak: Yes, yes, incapacitated to give testimony. Despite this, a few years later, after my mother died, my sister forged a document claiming that my mother had willed the house to her son, my nephew. Because of such dishonorable behavior, I completely severed all ties with my sister; I never renewed any relationship with her. Therefore, after Kyiv, I had to seek shelter with my friends. I found such shelter with a friend, Volodymyr Havara, who lived in Ternopil. His apartment was my next address.
But I missed something here. I wanted to say that after my release, when I started living in Kyiv in one apartment, then another, then a third, I actively began writing new works and restoring those that had been lost, or rewriting them. For example, the novella “Oasis” was rewritten with the addition of several important plot points that improved the content of the novella itself. It incorporated, so to speak, new experience. I also fully and finally developed the Pantheon project—in the camp, this was done only on scraps of paper, but here I was finally able to draw it. In fact, someone helped me draw it—I don’t remember who. I showed this drawing to an architect by profession, Mrs. Larysa Skoryk, although my relations with her later soured somewhat, but that’s of little importance. What’s most important is that then, somewhere from March 31 to May 10, 1991—it’s written down in the book—I wrote my longest work by volume, and a very interesting one, about my border crossing, about my adventures in Iran—this work is called “Is There Freedom Beyond the Mountain?” This work was written in 40 days, and for all those 40 days, I was in a constant fever—for those 40 days, I burned with fire, as if I were reliving the same experiences of crossing the border, when such dramatic events were unfolding, the process of crossing, the process of being handed back. All of this is described in the work “Is There Freedom Beyond the Mountain?”
So, I worked constantly and intensively then, working on new works and old ones. Finally, in the summer of 1991, I left Kyiv, went to Ternopil, and settled with a friend. I lived there for about 7 or 9 months. I continued to work on various pieces. In Kyiv, many URP members helped me type those works, typing them from the manuscript on a typewriter, as I didn’t have a typewriter then. In short, people helped me in many ways—some for money, and some for free. I was writing all the time; I lived with my friend in Ternopil until 1992. Meanwhile, of course, I visited Lviv, where I was very well received by one of the patriots who had once fought for my release—Volodymyr Yavorskyi. He put a lot of effort into getting me an apartment in Lviv. It was on his initiative and with the help of other people—though he himself was not, I believe, a deputy of the Regional Council, he knew many deputies, who at that time were mostly patriots or democrats, or temporarily played the role of democrats and patriots. There were also those whom power later corrupted; they became ordinary “sovoks.” But at that time, the majority of the Regional Council was still democratic or patriotic, or at least democratically minded. Thanks to the efforts of Volodymyr Yavorskyi, as well as other patriotic deputies, the issue of granting me an apartment was put on the agenda of the Regional Council in December 1991 and was resolved positively. By a majority or even unanimously, it was decided to provide me with housing in Lviv.
Thus, from March 31, 1992, I received the apartment where I am now—in Lviv.
V. Ovsiienko: At the address?..
B. Klymchak: The address is: 64 Hipsova Street, apartment 9—a one-room, with all amenities. There was no telephone at first, but with the help of other friends, in particular, Mr. Ryborak—he was also from the regional or city council—he helped me get a telephone in this apartment. And so I began to live in Lviv.
I didn’t mention earlier that I received some help from abroad. In total, over all the years, that assistance probably amounted to about $1,000. Of course, those dollars went to my food, to the retyping of my manuscripts, but the rest went to publishing my first book in 1994. The cost of publishing the book “Oasis-Mountain” was $650. That was the remainder of the $1,000 received from various foreign organizations, including Amnesty International. There was a significant sum from its Swedish branch—160 pounds sterling. From Holland, from my aforementioned associate Maya Graversande, there was a great deal of help. There was also help from the journalist, Ivan Svitlychnyi’s sister—Nadiia Svitlychna, $200, as far as I recall. In total, about $1,000, and from that sum, as I said, $650 was paid in 1994 for the publication of the book “Oasis-Mountain,” 3,400 copies—a rather large, enormous print run, fantastic for today. I still have the remnants of that book, a few hundred copies. Now, of course, it has no demand, due to the current situation.
My creative work continued, but on a smaller scale. By 1999, new works were collected into a new collection of 48 pages, which came out in 1999 as a brochure titled “The Renewed Decalogue of an Enslaved Ukrainian.” This time the print run was 400 copies.
This is all that pertains to my history up to this point.
And now I would like to read something about recent events.
V. Ovsiienko: Please do.
B. Klymchak: I have just received aid from the International Society for Human Rights in Frankfurt am Main in the amount of 40 US dollars. There, I am named as a dissident, a representative of dissidence. On this matter, I want to say the following. As I wrote in the book “Oasis-Mountain,” I was never a dissident. And why am I not a dissident? Because all the so-called human rights organizations were founded and led by Jews, used only the universally understood Muscovite language, and were not really concerned with national issues. During the time of the empire called the USSR, they fought mainly for the rights of Jews or Muscovites—I call them “Judeo-Muscovites” in one word.
It is little credit to these organizations that they graciously also mentioned the violated rights of representatives of other nations. This was done to enhance their image as impartial defenders. But in general, their activities at that time were quite positive, of course. When the USSR was restructured and renamed the Russian Federation, virtually nothing changed. Occupied peoples were allowed to change their colors and symbols, but the Jewish “human rights defenders” began to exclusively defend their own wheeler-dealers, or Jews and Muscovites who flew in from all over the world to plunder a, conditionally speaking, privatized-by-them Ukraine and other nations. Thus they became openly hostile to Ukrainian national patriots, to nationalists.
And here is an example. In recent months, the organization Amnesty International has not ceased its frenzied campaign against one single person—Augusto Pinochet, who is supposedly guilty of crimes nearly half a century old, while stubbornly turning a blind eye to the tragedy of an entire nation—Ichkeria, the Chechen people, who are being exterminated, as is known, by the bandit Muscovite people—that is how I allow myself to call them. I believe there are peoples of a bandit-type, and there are peoples of a parasitic-type (to them belong the Greeks, Jews, Armenians), and of the bandit-type peoples—the largest is the Muscovite people. The entire history of the Muscovite people is the gangster-like destruction of all other neighboring peoples, and not only neighboring ones.
I also want to remind you that on November 19, 1999, there was a meeting of OSCE leaders in Istanbul. At this meeting, the hostile, inhuman war of the bandit-Muscovite people against the people of Ichkeria was not condemned. Therefore, as a sign of protest, I addressed the organization Amnesty International in English with an appeal of the following content—this is a translation from English to Ukrainian:
“To the organization Amnesty International. Ukraine, Lviv, November 20,”—the day after the OSCE decided not to condemn Muscovy. “Ladies and gentlemen! The shameful event that took place yesterday in Istanbul has extremely outraged me. The leaders of 52 OSCE countries did not condemn the genocide of the people of Ichkeria by the Muscovite military gang. The day of November 19, 1999, must be designated as the final verdict on the criminal activities of the OSCE”—this is my proposal. “Will Amnesty International be capable of any protest against this worldwide criminal activity? By the way, in that same Istanbul, the so-called Ukrainian ‘newly elected’ president Kuchma also approved the genocide of the people of Ichkeria.”
Mr. Kuchma is “small”—in translation from the English word “small,” there are also variants like “limited, base person”—these are variants of the word. So, “small,” “base,” or “limited”—it’s all the word “small.” Thus, “Mr. Kuchma is a small, base, limited person, a puppet of the great Jewish and great Muscovite people.
The occupation of Ukraine also continues. Can Christmas be happy?”—this was exactly a month before Christmas, —“for you, for all decent people in the world under these conditions? It cannot. Sincerely yours, Bohdan Klymchak (signature), a former member of Amnesty International,”—as you can see, I emphasize—“former,” because I cannot consider myself a member when they are fighting against some fictitious criminal Pinochet, while not seeing an entire nation being exterminated by Moscow. “...former member of Amnesty International, former last political prisoner in the USSR, Ukrainian writer.”
This is the appeal I made, and this appeal was sent in English to England. Of course, it had no particular effect. Well, I am, of course, a “former” one—a former political prisoner, a former member of Amnesty International, but I am not yet a former writer of Ukraine.
That is all. Thank you.
There is still one important story to add regarding the issue of my rehabilitation, or rather, non-rehabilitation. And it was like this. About 5 years ago, a paper came from the Lviv KGB archive, a whole two printed pages, where the KGBists explained long and confusedly that on the basis of such-and-such articles and so on and so forth, Mr. Bohdan Klymchak can apply for, seek rehabilitation—he has the right, you see. Well, I reacted to this, to put it mildly, negatively, and sent it all back with an inscription: “Statement-lawsuit against the KGB gang,” as I call them and will continue to call them. That is, I refused to even raise the issue of rehabilitation in such a form—after all, I am to be rehabilitated by my former judges, blatant criminals, enemies of humanity, who should be punished, not be given the right to rehabilitate or not rehabilitate after my, so to speak, tearful little plea—it didn't happen and it won't happen! That's the story with this rehabilitation.
In addition, on whose initiative is unknown, but from Muscovy, from the Magadan Regional Court, a paper also came about a ready-made rehabilitation. I hesitated for a long time whether to accept it or not, and then I thought: well, I’ll take it to the social security office, let them take it into account if they want, or not if they don't. I took it there, they looked at it and said that it was drafted incorrectly, in violation of some norms, and therefore invalid. To write again... I didn't write in the first place and I wasn’t going to write on this matter, to appeal, to complain to my comrades, the judge-criminals from Magadan. Thus, I am not rehabilitated under either of these two articles and I receive a pension of 46 hryvnias—the minimum pension. That’s the explanation.
V. Ovsiienko: That was Bohdan Klymchak giving an addendum on the street, recorded by Vasyl Ovsiienko on January 21, 2000. It's evening here now—what time is it?—almost seven o’clock. The total recording is approximately 85 minutes.
Photos by V. Ovsiienko, 01.21.2000: Bohdan Klymchak next to the model of the Pantheon of Ukraine.
