RUSSIAN WRITER SLAMS UKRAINIAN SECRET POLICE

The famous Russian writer Vasily Aksenov was surprised to find out that a copy of his novel THE ISLAND OF CRIMEA had been confiscated by Ukrainian secret service (SBU) as a piece of evidence in a case of political persecutions. Mr. Aksenov who lives in France and is visiting Sevastopol where he is chairing a panel of experts at the Film Festival named after the title of his novel said that today’s SBU officers are worth of their fathers in the 1980s when reading The Island of Crimea could cost a Soviet citizen three years in jail.
The book Ostrov Krym – The Island of Crimea – was seized in the end of January when the SBU agents were searching the apartment of journalist Nadezhda Poliakova, correspondent for Russian information agency REGNUM. Mrs. Poliakova and all members of her family, including her underage son, were interrogated by the security police. The Ukrainian occupational regime was furious at the coverage by Mrs. Poliakova of a symbolic action by the youth organization of Proryv staged on the Chongarsky isthmus January 20. The young people had dug a trench on the isthmus to demonstrate that the Crimea was cutting itself off from the mainland Ukraine. They said they had been inspired by an episode from the Island of Crimea novel by Vasily Aksenov. The police failed to build up a case against the Proryv. The charges of violation of the Ukrainian sovereignty laid by police did not stand in court.
Speaking at a press conference in Sevastopol yesterday Vasily Aksenov said that he had heard only about the trench-digging and reacted to it with humour. He suggested that the Ukrainian authorities should build a channel across the isthmus. It could bring them a lot of money, the writer said. He finds it odd to persecute young people for staging a peaceful act of protest.
The Proryv organization has enthusiastically reacted to Vasily Aksenov’s remarks. One of the leaders of the group Alexander Dobychin vowed to stage another political performance and to base it on a new novel by the famous Russian writer to be published in 2007.