I mentioned in a previous post that I'm doing research on political rehabilitations. My plan was to start with newspaper articles and, once I got a feel for how rehabilitations had been handled before, to get an interview with the Military Prosecutor for the Northern Caucus Military District (Военная Прокуратора СКВО).
The papers came up with a few interesting tidbits: in the mid-nineties, a woman received 6.5 million rubles--roughly $1,000 according to the exchange rate in the same newspaper or $2,000 dollars today, after the monetary reforms--for being incarcerated for political crimes under Stalin and another woman received half that amount; yet another was (and perhaps still is) receiving 107 rubles ($4.25) per month as payment for the execution for her father for political crimes. In total, of all petitions for rehabilitation, something like 4 million throughout the country, roughly 20% were rejected.
So, how does rehabilitation calculus work? In short, I have no idea and probably never will. My guess is that it works a lot like financial aid for grad school in the US, with the Military Prosecutor's office acting as admissions. My first attempt to get in touch with the office was through the military newpaper. Although they wouldn't give me the guy's email address or phone, they did give me his name and their politeness gave me the hope, sweet hope, that he would be willing to answer a few questions.
In fact, they had told me to look for him at the office at the military base downtown. My plan was to go down there and ask for an appointment or, even better, be given an audience with the man immediately. After I wrote up a list of questions in case of the latter, I told the people in my office where I was going to their horror. Occording to them, going to this base would probably lead to me being shot, or at least ridiculed. Since I fear humiliation more than death, I decided to head their advice and let my secretary call his secretary and to try to make an appointment.
The following is their conversation, half of which was reported to me:
My Secretary: Hello, can we have Colonel so-and-so's office. This is Southern Federal University.
Their Secretary: What do you want?
MS: An American student wants to set up an appointment to ask about the process of rehabilitations in Russia.
TS: You know that all Americans are spies.
She got me! Anyway, here's some secret spy shit from Rostov.
"The Plumber's Beloved"
"Meat Products"
1 comment:
Funny. All Americans are spies? Have the Russians become that xenophobic?
of course, in my case, it wouldn't be too far from the truth.
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