The great city of Odessa, the pearl of the Black Sea, was founded by Vytautas the Great, the Grand Duke of Lithuania, at the end of the fourteenth century. Soon after that, the Ottomans conquered the city and renamed it Khadzhibey (or Hacibey in Polish), incorporating it into the Yedisan province. In the eighteenth century, the Turks rebuilt Khadzhibey’s fortress and renamed it Yeni Dünya [literally “New World”]. Khadzhibey became the sanjak, or administrative center, of the Silistre province. Through the efforts of Catherine the Great, Russia annexed this territory, and Odessa became the major port city of the “New Russia.” In the course of a single century, Odessa became the fourth largest city in the Russian Empire, after Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw.
Odessa used to be famous for, along with other traditions, its criminal underworld (romanticized by Isaac Babel), its Jewish community, its political anecdotes from all eras, its citizens’ discontent, its famous lust for freedom, and, as a result, its many dissidents. In our prison, this legendary city was well represented by the theoretical physicist Pyotr Butov. He was arrested on February 10, 1982, and the Odessa Regional Court sentenced him to five years of prison and two years of exile.
Pyotr Butov’s contribution to the dissident movement was enormous. He inherited a unique library of anti-Soviet literature from Vyacheslav Igrunov, which he expanded and made available to readers, earning it a place in the annals of history. This library, a true miracle of the Soviet underground, consisted of both samizdat and tamizdat publications. Its catalog included Solzhenitsyn, Sakharov, Bulgakov, Platonov, Zamyatin, and Pasternak; periodicals beginning with The Chronicle of Current Events and ending with The Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church; a book collection ranging from George Orwell’s 1984 to Andrey Amalrik’s Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?; and tamizdat journals ranging from Vladimir Maximov’s Kontinent to Posev, the famous journal of the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists.
Over the course of Soviet history, there were only three such underground libraries—in Moscow, Petersburg, and Odessa. According to public opinion, the Odessa library was the largest, containing approximately 30,000 published items (books, journals, newspapers, posters, and so on), more than 20,000 titles, and 20,000 microfilms. The library had its own copying machines, its own microfilm developing laboratory, and even its own budget. It even used the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) system. Library membership wasn’t free—it cost one ruble a year, and, for a fee, the library would make copies. The library also published its own materials, for example, the yearly almanac Deribasovskaya.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the entire world learned about this library from a book by Lyudmila Alexeyeva, The History of Dissent in the USSR, published in Vilnius in 1992.24 In that same year, I was invited to the Library of Congress to give a talk about Odessa’s Igrunov-Butov underground library to an assembly of library directors from all over the world. Our colleagues from South America were most interested in the subject, so the text was translated into Spanish and Portuguese, and, as far as I know, it helped dissidents to organize a similar underground library in Cuba. (In Cuba, the underground library was largely dedicated to media. They had a large collection of prohibited movies along with outlawed printed materials.)
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, the true queen of the liberation movement and the pride of Russian dissidents, explained that the secret behind the high quality of samizdat publications was directly related to the lack of proper equipment and facilities. Any nonsense can be printed, especially if you have money and connections, but if you’re using a typewriter, you’re bound to choose only something of real interest to you, something that you’re willing to spend time on and take risks to reproduce. This is why samizdat truly represented the very best of literary, political, and social thought of that time.
The underground library under Butov’s management lasted almost ten years and served thousands of people without jeopardizing its existence. Butov was an excellent administrator and a brilliant manager, and the library grew and blossomed during his tenure. Odessa’s library gave birth to many legends, illustrating the fact that talented and devoted people are capable of anything, even in an evil empire. Unfortunately, this legendary library was destroyed in a fire—just like the Odessa summer theater had been. By arresting Butov and destroying the Odessa library, the Chekists added one more star to their epaulets. Butov liked to joke that the previous library directors had destroyed people’s lives, but that he’d managed to get away with destroying only the books. I can just imagine how happy the Chekists felt when they found the library in the center of Odessa, in the secret basement of the house where Butov’s girlfriend lived, and later when they brought volume upon volume of anti-Soviet literature up from that basement and threw them into the fire—an improvised auto-da-fé in the courtyard that lasted a whole week. The Soviet press reported on this shameful act of destroying anti-Soviet literature, i.e., good books, and the information even found its way into the Georgian newspaper Komunisti.
Butov organized safe routes for importing anti-Soviet books from Europe and the US straight to the port of Odessa. Later he told me that he dealt only with the sailors, never trusting any of the “morale officers.” He transferred almost all the anti-Soviet literature onto microfilm and kept the original books as the core collection. That’s why the library hadn’t suffered any serious losses until its downfall. On occasion they typed new copies, using thin paper like the paper used for cigarettes, one that could produce seven carbon copies at a time. We used the same simple method for printing our party’s newspaper, Samreklo, or Bell Tower, which brought Butov and me even closer, establishing, on top of everything else, a special “technological comradery.” When the Chekists found the library, they destroyed only its core collection, but the microfilms survived. And so, Butov’s library exists to this day.
In 1983, Butov had already been arrested and transferred to a political prison when the Korean airplane tragedy occurred. He was so affected by the story that he thought about it constantly and decided to try and solve the mystery. He began by questioning the new inmates about the accident, asking about the time, the details of the flight, the history of that particular airplane, the passengers, the reaction of the Politburo, the position of the news broadcast Vremya, the West’s reaction—in short, everything.
For Butov, the Flight 007 catastrophe was not only an act of sabotage conducted by the Soviet Union, but it was also a somewhat personal tragedy. On September 1, 1983, in the west part of Sakhalin Island, in the restricted airspace above the Japanese Sea, a Soviet interceptor plane shot down the Korean Airliner Boeing 747 as it flew from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. There were two hundred sixty-nine people on board (two hundred forty-six passengers and twenty-three crewmembers). All of them died, including twelve children under the age of twelve.
Initially, the Soviet Union denied any knowledge of the incident, but later admitted to shooting down the aircraft, claiming it was a spy plane. The Politburo stated that it was a deliberate provocation by the United States to probe the Soviet Union’s military preparedness or even to provoke a war. The United States accused the Soviet Union of obstructing the search and rescue operations. Only ten years after the incident, yielding to pressure from the International Civil Aviation Organization, did Russia make the data related to the tragedy available to the public.
Considered one of the tensest moments of the Cold War, this incident escalated anti-Soviet sentiment all over the world, especially in the United States. As a result of this tragedy, the United States altered its tracking system for aircraft departing from Alaska and made the Global Positioning System (GPS) available for civilian flights in order to avoid such incidents in the future.
Right after the downing of the Korean flight, Ronald Reagan began calling the Soviet Union an evil empire. Here is what the President of the United States said regarding the Soviet Union: “While they preach the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.”
More than a third of the passengers were Korean, and almost a quarter were American (one of them was a Congressman from Georgia, Larry McDonald). The remaining passengers were from Japan, China, the Philippines, Canada, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. There was a second aircraft that took off fifteen minutes later along the same flight path, but that second plane made it safely to Seoul.
At a secret meeting that took place in the small library room, with only ten inmates in attendance, Butov read us his report on the Korean aircraft. He finished his talk with the following words: “I don’t know whether then Secretary General of the Communist Party, the ‘poet’ Yuri Andropov, who was sick in body and spirit (and who is no longer among the living), the Minister of Defense, the idiot General Dmitry Ustinov (who is also no longer among us), and the head of the State Security Committee, Viktor Chebrikov (who is still among us—who would dare kill him?!) knew that the aircraft that took off from JFK Airport in New York City on August 30, 1983, and that was shot down above the Japanese Sea by a Soviet missile was a symbol of the future fall of the USSR. The day when the USSR would cease to exist was not far off, and when it came, long-serving Politburo members would have to answer, along with many others, the following question: ‘Do you recall the taste of children’s blood?’”
In the prison life of inmate Butov, there was one episode that is still remembered by all of us. Once, Butov played Sherlock Holmes, tracked down a criminal, and meted out his punishment.
The story began suddenly. Out of the blue, the inmates began to notice that small items were disappearing. Nothing like this had happened in many years, but now it was happening all the time. The list of missing items made it rather difficult to come up with any system for their classification. Indeed, what kind of connection could possibly exist between Levan Berdzenishvili’s nuts and his can of condensed milk, Rafik Papayan’s single head of garlic, Johnny Lashkarashvili’s twenty grams of butter, collected with great effort from his allotted ration, Zhora Khomizuri’s fifty grams of egg powder, Misha Polyakov’s one hundred grams of flour, and so on?
I brought this question to Odessa’s pride and joy, the physicist and unparalleled Sherlock Holmes disciple Pyotr Butov (whose love of guns and violins connected him even more closely to Holmes).
“You’re asking some strange questions, Mr. Georgia!” Butov said, gladly accepting the challenge. Just like his renowned predecessor, Butov often complained about the lack of crime during the first years of perestroika. “Truly, what can garlic and butter have in common? You can go now, Mr. Georgia, and come back in an hour—I’ll have an answer for you.”
One hour later, I came back accompanied by Zhora Khomizuri and Borya Manilovich. My choice of companions wasn’t random. First, when it came to such petty thievery, the inmates, beginning with Pavelsons and ending with Bobkov, would eventually accuse Borya as he was the most obviously Semitic. In addition, Borya was very skeptical about Butov’s crime-solving abilities, finding traces of anti-Semitism in many of his statements. Here I should note that Borya himself crossed a line when he said that Butov couldn’t represent Odessa because, in order to represent that city, he should have a Jewish-sounding name—at least Butovich or, better yet, Butkevich.
“We do hope, Mr. Physicist Butov, the pride of Odessa, the greatest librarian and human being, that you will simply and straightforwardly investigate this case, find the offender, and restore justice. As you know, there are outstanding representatives of the South Caucasus among the victims,” said the extremely eloquent Georgy Khomizuri, the one and only chairman of the Christian Federation of South Caucasian Nations.
“You put your trust in the right place, Mr. Geologist Zhora. I’ve already taken the first step in the investigation—I have discovered a profound connection among the stolen items.”
“Are you, by any chance, referring to the fact that butter and garlic are edible items?” Borya inquired with a reverential tone.
“The butter was stolen from Lashkarashvili, was it not?”
“Yes, indeed. He has lung problems and his doctor allowed him five grams a day. He collected butter for four days, and the thief took all twenty grams!” Zhora said with indignation.
“Emotions won’t help us here. Let’s just remember that the butter was stolen from a sick person. Even more importantly, it was stolen from a person who wouldn’t even think of hiding it.”
“But wasn’t garlic stolen from Rafael Papayan, who kept it in a secret safe?”
“Where would he get a safe in prison?” asked Zhora.
“I agree. Let’s not call it a safe,” Butov said. “But there is no doubt that the garlic was hidden rather well. And here we have the first clue: It’s irrelevant to the thief how well the owner hides his things. He steals everything, even Papayan’s well-hidden head of garlic—when, incidentally, no one in the prison had even seen a garlic clove in the last three months! And the thief has no problem stealing from a sick person, meaning he’s free from any moral reservations or any national bias as well.”
“What are you trying to say, Holmes?” I asked.
“That our thief is a remarkable psychologist.”
“And how can you tell he has any knowledge of psychology?”
“Because of the thief’s assessment that, even if he were to be caught and accused of stealing the garlic, no one would say a good word about Papayan, who had allowed his garlic, something as precious as gold, to dry out. And Lashkarashvili, who collects his butter instead of eating it, looks ridiculous to the thief. Presenting his victims as laughingstocks—that’s the psychological weapon of our thief.”
“So, if he steals butter, he’s a pig, but if he steals garlic, he’s a refined psychologist?” I asked, growing irritated.
“Is something going on that I don’t know about?” Vadim Yankov asked as he entered the room. “The physicists and the philologists are discussing something, but there’s no place for us poor mathematicians? Papayan’s garlic is garlic, but my whole jar of clarified butter is not clarified butter?”
“Were you also robbed?” I asked, surprised, since Cos never saved anything. Whenever he received a package, he immediately consumed everything inside.
“According to my observations, Yuri Badzyo is the only man who hasn’t been robbed yet because he carries his possessions with him at all times—Omnia sua secum portat, isn’t that true, my dear Socrates?”
(Badzyo always carried his clock with him.)
“How were we supposed to know you had clarified butter?” Butov asked slyly.
“Why did you need to know about it? I knew about it!” Vadim yelled.
“The thief wants to shame you for eating clarified butter on the sly.”
“Are you saying I should eat more obnoxiously?”
“No, but you should have let me try some,” Zhora said.
“Help me find my butter, and I’ll let all of you try some. One spoonful for everyone. But just one teaspoon. It’s French butter.”
“The thief is constantly at work. He’s obviously a professional,” Butov concluded.
“What’s a professional thief doing in a political prison? Aren’t his people next door? The thieves, murderers, and rapists are all over there.”
“Well, we have one professional merchant here who used to sell Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago for ten rubles,” Butov added. And it’s true that, as long as I can remember, there’d been an endless dispute in Barashevo over whether we should consider Mr. Melnikov a dissident if he’d been selling anti-Soviet literature but didn’t share the ideology of his products. Melnikov didn’t consider himself a dissident.
“The thief is young,” Butov suddenly announced. “And he was convicted under Article 70.”
“How do you know?” we asked, clearly surprised.
“Papayan showed me his secret hiding place. You need to be young and in good physical shape to reach it.”
Using this method of “deduction,” we quickly singled out four candidates—Shabonas, Barkanas, Mironov, and Udachin.
“It’s definitely not Shabonas,” Butov said.
“How do you figure?” Yankov asked.
“He talks a lot, and he doesn’t fit the profile of a thief,” Butov concluded.
“Then there are three left—Barkanas, Mironov, and Udachin,” I said.
“You Georgians have ironclad logic, but it’s not Barkanas, either,” Sherlock-Butov announced.
“And why is that, sir?” Manilovich asked, surprised. “Barkanas is as quiet as a mouse, and he has no health issues.”
“He doesn’t have any friends. Our thief is arrogant. He loves an audience and definitely has at least one close friend. He needs to show someone that he’s smart and talented!”
“Doesn’t Barkanas have any friends?”
“No, he doesn’t. He’s like a romantic poet, always alone.”
“And he sleeps like the dead at night,” added Yankov, Barkanas’s neighbor in the barracks.
“So that leaves two—Mironov and Udachin,” I concluded.
“They’re both young, and both are in great physical shape. They’re very capable young men. Mironov is interested in computers, and Udachin likes science fiction. Mironov is Levan’s friend, and Udachin is Anderson’s,” Khomizuri informed us.
“Let me introduce you, my friends, to Udachin, our own goon and resident thief of political prison ZhKh 385/5-3,” Butov announced almost solemnly. “This morning I noticed a small rash on his face. It looks like he’s tried Berdzenishvili’s nuts.”
“The criminal has been found. What are we going to do with him now?” Zhora asked.
“What do we do? We need to go to the library and have a talk with his friend Anderson.”
We went to see Anderson. Butov informed him of our investigation and its results. For some reason, Anderson was easy to convince, and he proposed a three-step conclusion to the drama:
Udachin will publicly confess his crimes.
He will return all the stolen goods.
He will intentionally get into trouble and get sent to the hole.
This prediction was accepted, and everyone left. Only three of us remained near the library—Butov, Anderson, and I. All three of us knew that Anderson was in charge of a rather small but “ideologically correct” library. Anderson, however, didn’t know that Butov, who was standing next to him, had created a legendary underground library of anti-Soviet literature, so large and complete, and most importantly, so ideologically incorrect, that for several years it gave the entire State Security of the USSR many sleepless nights. I also didn’t know at the time that, many years later, I would be in charge of the Georgian National Library, the third largest in the USSR.
Udachin petulantly admitted to all his crimes. In the evening, the six of us (the investigators plus the wronged Papayan with his garlic—Anderson refused to share his food) were already eating satsivi with nuts while the controller Sureykin was escorting Udachin to the hole to serve fifteen days for disobedience and to allow him to reflect on the meaning of life.
Butov emigrated after his release. Now he lives in Germany and works as a physicist, while his colleague Vyacheslav Igrunov went into Russian politics. He’s the deputy chair of the Yabloko party, though the party itself is in a serious state of crisis. And Korean aircraft don’t even come close to the Russian border these days.
24 This book was first published in English translation, as Alexeyeva, Lyudmila. Soviet Dissent: Contemporary Movements for National, Religious, and Human Rights. Translated by Carol Pearce and John Glad, Wesleyan University Press, 1985. The book was published in Russia only in 1992.