22. Syphilbar

January 25, 2014 · Adam Bondaruk, Baptists, Victor Belykh, AUCECB, Persecution, Interview, KGB, Books, Unregistered Pentecostals, Nikolay Kotyakov, On Emigration, United Church of Evangelical Christians, Vestibule, Petr Saenko, Pentecostals, Religious Mafia, Slavik Radchuk, Contemporary Persecution, Security Services

The investigation came to an end. The monotonous, grey prison days dragged on, indistinguishable one from the next. About six days passed like this. Then the cell door opened and a guard came in.
“Perchatkin, with your things!”
Ten minutes to pack, and I was led through the prison labyrinths. They brought me into a large cell, holding about thirty men.
A prisoner stripped to the waist came up to me. The skin on his chest, stomach, and one arm was affected by some disease and looked like fish scales.
“I’m the elder of this cell. I need to find you a place here. What are you in with?”
I didn’t understand the question.
“You want to ask what for?”
“I’m not interested in what for. What disease did you bring in here?”
“I have no disease at all.”
“Don’t play dumb. You don’t know this is the syph ward? They don’t put people in here for a headache. They’ve already thrown everyone together—skin cases and venereal cases. So we have to arrange ourselves so we don’t, as far as possible, pass some infection on to each other. I see your skin is fine. Maybe you have syphilis? Then your place is over there,” he pointed to the left corner of the cell.
Taken by surprise, I was at a loss. I’d expected all kinds of dirty tricks from the KGB, but I hadn’t imagined this scenario.
“Well, why are you silent?” the cell elder addressed me again.
“I’m healthy. I have no skin diseases or venereal ones. I’m a KGB case. They shoved me in here to break me and force me to plead guilty.”

Surname?
Perchatkin.
At evening roll call demand that they take you out of here, or you’ll catch something. He turned around and went back to his bunk. I threw my rolled mattress on the floor and sat down. I had no doubt that this was the KGB’s doing. But what do they want? To compromise me by having me stay in this cell? The investigation is over, and the case file doesn’t record which cells I was held in. One thing is clear: I’m not here by chance, and they want to do something to me before the trial. Suddenly Gely Snegirev flashes into my memory. I had met him healthy at a press conference. His health and energy were so striking, and I was stunned a year later to hear that he had died of cancer in the prison hospital before his trial. Everyone who knew Gely was convinced that the infection had been injected into his body in prison to get rid of an undesirable writer. “The KGB wants me to catch syphilis in this cell,” I thought. “Or maybe they’ll take a blood test and infect me, and then blackmail me: plead guilty, write a confession of repentance, and we’ll cure you; if you don’t, we’ll disgrace you and let you rot alive.” I sat in that stone casemate, filled with every kind of contagion. Cockroaches scurried across the filthy floor in front of me. Hunger, torture with chemicals, exhausting standing in “glasses,” and now this as well. My only weapon is prayer and a will strengthened by power from heaven. I pray and ask God to preserve me in this new assault of the devil. I remember words from the Gospel: “Those who believe in Me will be accompanied by signs; they will tread on snakes and scorpions, and if they drink anything deadly, it will not harm them.” About an hour passed. The hatch opened.
Perchatkin, without your things, - shouted the screw. So it had begun, and so quickly. I step out of the cell. In front of me stands a young screw, probably a new one. “Hands behind your back!” he commands - and clicks the handcuffs on me, - “I’ve been ordered to bring you in handcuffs.” My legs become disobedient. Slowly, as if to execution, I walk along the corridor. After about twenty metres, the screw spoke to me in a whisper:
I’m Igor. My parents are Baptists. I’m from Tashkent. I’m studying at the law faculty, and I have to serve two years in the Interior Ministry system. Incredible rumours are going around the prison administration about you - they say you’re a spy, but since childhood I’ve known that Baptists are considered spies. My grandfather was also tried as a spy. I want to help you.
How can you help me?
On my day off I could dash over to your relatives and pass on anything you say. The thought flashed through my mind that the screw was a provocateur. But I had nothing to lose.
All right, can you get to Nakhodka tomorrow?
No, I can’t possibly tomorrow, I’m working.
I need you to be there tomorrow; afterwards it might be too late.
If it’s that urgent, I’ll take a taxi today and do everything you say. I remember well what is written: whoever gives a cup of water will not lose his reward.
Remember this: Uritsky Lane 11, Pad Obodnaya district, the taxi drivers know it. Tell them that I’ve been tortured three times with chemicals, and now they’re holding me in the syph ward. Where you’re taking me, and what will happen to me, I don’t know. I’m certain they want to infect me with some filth. A few minutes later I was led into the prison doctor’s office. A doctor, a woman of about thirty-five, in a military uniform with a white coat thrown over it.
Sit at the desk, - she ordered, glancing at me indifferently, and pointed to a chair opposite her. Two guards immediately “helped” me sit down, pressing hard on my shoulders. They removed the handcuff from my left hand, and cuffed my right hand behind me to the chair leg. I sat there, their hands remaining on my shoulders. I hadn’t felt fear in prison, but now I went cold. A trembling appeared in my legs. They weren’t holding my shoulders for nothing - everything had been prepared in advance, everything planned. Now they would infect me with syphilis through blood, under the pretext of taking a blood sample, and they were holding me so I wouldn’t physically resist. Oh God, help me. I tried to sit more comfortably so as not to show my agitation, but the strong hands of the guards forced me to stay in the same position.
Citizen Perchatkin, - the woman addressed me, - you have been found to have syphilis in an advanced form. You concealed your illness, but the blood test taken when you were admitted to the remand prison is proof. And how your nose hasn’t collapsed with such syphilis, I’m amazed, - she added after a short pause and ordered: “Left hand on the table, roll up your sleeve! I’ll take a repeat test, and you’ll sign a paper stating that you’ve been warned of the responsibility for spreading syphilis.” The screws immediately stretched my hand out on the table. She got up and took a syringe from the cabinet. The syringe was unusual, very thin. You don’t draw blood with such a syringe.
So that’s how it is, - I said, trying to be calm. - When exactly did you discover I have syphilis, and in an advanced form?
I already told you - on admission to the remand prison. And do you even know when I was admitted to the remand prison? They obviously didn’t inform you that I arrived here eight months ago, so I won’t let you take a blood test from me, and tell whoever gave you that syringe that you don’t take tests with syringes like that. I’ll still find a way to get word out to the outside world; everything will be known in the free world, and then you’ll have to answer too, because you want to infect me with syphilis. Isn’t that so? Tell them that I’ll rot, but I won’t say what the KGB wants, and I will not admit any guilt. The woman put the syringe on the desk.
I don’t believe you, I don’t believe what you’ve just said. I know only one thing: you are a dangerous criminal and a state offender.
You don’t have to believe me. Request my personal file - not even the case file, just my personal card; everything is recorded there. The woman was silent for a long time, then phoned the special unit. She asked what I was in for, whether I really had ties to the West. After receiving the information, she fell into thought, then ordered the guards out of the office.
Don’t think I’m afraid of the KGB or the West; it’s just that apparently some mistake has occurred, and I’ve decided: until I clarify everything, I won’t take any blood test. You sit in the cell for now; I’ll prescribe you a diet, only sign the paper that you’ve been warned of the responsibility for spreading syphilis.
I’m not signing anything, and I’m declaring a hunger strike, so I don’t need your diet. And now I demand that you send me to an ordinary cell.
Returning you to an ordinary cell is not within my power, but what you’ve just said, I’ll pass everything on. I was taken back to the syph ward again. The next morning, KGB Lieutenant Colonel Bykov summoned me. When they brought me into his office, he laughed cheerfully:
What, lad, refusing treatment? Blackmailing the doctor? What foreign connections are you trying to scare us with? All your connections are finished. All your mates are sitting quietly like mice, so forget everything and admit your guilt. No one here will help you except us.
Well, you’ve just admitted that it was on your orders that I was put in the syph ward. This is your doing. But I have nothing to confess. Bykov abruptly stood up from behind the desk, came right up to me, and hissed:
Don’t make beasts of us, Boris Georgievich, we are people. We must make you admit your guilt at the trial. I have an order from Moscow, and I must carry it out. - Got it?! Write a letter saying you admit your guilt, and right now you’ll go to an ordinary cell. The prosecutor will hand your case back for supplementary investigation, you’ll give new, correct testimony, and after the trial you’ll go straight home. We have to disarm you, at least by half. I stared indifferently out of the window; a patch of sky was visible.
I’m not signing anything. I’m not guilty.
Well, then we’ll treat you. And back to the syph ward. I didn’t stop praying for a minute, and I touched nothing: neither water, nor food. In the cell no one paid any attention to me; there, generally, nobody paid attention to anyone. I slept sitting on my mattress, leaning my back against the wall. Sleep was short and troubled. I was in constant expectation. At any moment the hatch could open and a screw would shout: “Perchatkin, without your things, on your way out!” It happened two days later. In the corridor two screws were waiting for me: “Hands behind your back!” The handcuffs clicked onto my wrists. I was already so physically exhausted that a kind of indifference to whatever would happen to me set in. So Igor was a provocateur. Or indeed, as Bykov had said, there were no more connections. I relied only on God. “Lord, I give myself into Your hands…” They led me into the warden’s office. Besides the warden, Bykov and the head of the regime unit were present. Bykov stood up from the desk and shouted: “Scoundrel! Villain! Animal! When will you stop sucking our blood? You’ve slandered us again. What chemicals did they torture you with here? What syph ward did they put you in? You’ll answer to me for everything, you bastard! Right now you’ll go for supplementary investigation. The prison administration is opening a case against you for slander. You’ll have to answer for everything: the ‘glasses’, the chemicals, and the syph ward! You’ll prove everything to the investigator. I guarantee you that you’ll prove nothing.” Joy entered my soul. Zina had passed the information abroad. I understood that Igor was the answer to my prayer. The Lord had not forgotten me. Now nothing was frightening to me. I silently thanked the Lord for all the difficulties and trials He had sent me, for His love, for His help and the strength He gave me in those trials. The Lord is with me! I can do all things through the Lord who strengthens me! Turning to the warden, Bykov shouted:
Find the scoundrel he got to! They’ll go as a pair in a new case. What kind of screws do you have here! Check everyone who had contact with him!
It’s hard to establish; we don’t record who takes whom where, we can only check the duty officers in the corridor, - the regime head answered timidly.
Find! Find! Find! - yelled Bykov, - do you understand what you’ve done? Now your prison is known to the whole world. Record every screw who comes near his cell! The warden ordered the regime head to have the block supervisor personally control all duty staff wherever I would be.
Block supervisor! Duty officer in the corridor! You’re all screws! The crooks call you that rightly, - Bykov shouted mockingly. - If there had been a block supervisor and duty officers in the corridor, this wouldn’t have happened.

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