Subject: from the Agency for Social Information Weekly Bulletin
From: Center for Civil Society International (ccsi@u.washington.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 14 1999 - 14:40:05 EDT
>From the Weekly Bulletin of Agency for Social Information in Moscow.
Translation by Nadia Peiro. Contact information for ASI: Tel: (7-095)
250-6160. Fax: 250-6156. E-mail: asi@aha.ru Web site: www.asi.org.ru
1. Committee of Soldiers Mothers sends letter to Yeltsin re Dagestan.
2. V. Abramkin's Social Centre of Assistance for the Reform of Criminal
Justice prepares to publish a selection of poems by prisoners.
3. Disabled individual in Arkhangelsk region links his town to the
Internet.
4. "Dobrodei," new social organization in Arkhangelsk.
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OPEN LETTER FROM SOLDIERS' MOTHERS TO THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENT
Moscow, 1st September. The unified Committee of Soldiers Mothers of Russia
(KCM), has sent an open letter to the President of Russia, B. N. Yeltsin,
in which they request (a) a full accounting on war activities in Dagestan,
(b) the issuance of an edict forbidding the dispatch of conscripted
soldiers to increasingly dangerous areas, and (c) establishment of an
official weekly report from the government on events in the region. This
should include a regular list of soldiers wounded, killed, or missing in
the course of war operations in the Republic of Dagestan.
The letter goes on to say that, from the beginning of the war in Dagestan,
the KCM has been constantly receiving appeals from parents who have no
information on their sons' whereabouts, having received nothing from
either the Ministry of Interior or the Ministry of Defense.
Soldiers fighting in Dagestan (as was the case in the Chechen war) have no
distinguishing identification, bracelet or medal. No blood tests or
fingerprints are taken for the creation of an identification data base of
Russian citizens. In the Rostov-on-Don hospital, where deceased soldiers
are taken, lies a group of unidentified soldiers.
"Parents need their sons alive, not material compensation and help in
burial remembrance," the KCM says in the open letter.
PRISONERS CREATIVE WORK WILL BECOME ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC
Moscow. The Social Center of Assistance for the Reform of Criminal Justice
is preparing to publish a selection of poems by prisoners. The idea was
conceived after learning about the creative work of Lyubov Nebrenchina, a
self-educated poet. She was born in 1974 in Novokuznetsk and in 1997
arrived in Moscow, where she ended up in the Orlovsky women's settlement.
While finding herself in solitary confinement, Lyubov turned for help to
the Moscow Helsinki group, whose activists sent her a pamphlet, on the
basis of which she was able to write an appeal and obtain a reduced jail
sentence.
>From the settlement, Nebrenchina sent her poems to the Social Center of
Assistance for the Reform of Criminal Justice. By a fortunate coincidence
Irina Lisenkova, a writer from the town of Tver, was at the same time
becoming interested in prisoners' creative work, and decided to create a
Web site of their poetry. In her search for material, Irina turned to the
center, where she got acquainted with L. Hebrenska's work. Her works have
now been published on the Internet.
The deputy director of the Center of Assistance for the Reform of Criminal
Justice, Lyudmila Alpern, called on Lyubov Nebrenchina at the Orlovsky's
women settlement and brought her books on works by Mandelstam, Brodsky,
Tsvetaeva and Tarkovski.
"A poetry club has been officially registered recently in the
settlement,"says L. Alpern, "and now it is possible to develop the
creative talents of prisoners. We hope that the collection of poems will
be ready for publication in October/November. The editor is Vladimir
Abramkin, the director of the center and one of the authors of the
collection who, during his own time, was a political prisoner".
DISABLED PERSON IN BOARDING HOME CREATES KARGOPOL WEB SITE
Kargopol (Arkhangelski region). In the small town of Kargopol lives Sergei
Belyayev, a person with limited physical capabilities, with his wife Lena,
who is also an invalid. He cannot go outside and his world is limited by
the walls of his boarding home room, where he must stay, since he has no
relatives.
However, Sergei has for some time now, been an indispensable member of the
town. He has been the first one to familiarize himself with the Internet
and will be creating a Web site for Kargopol. In it, he will include
details on books about Kargopol, English-translated books about places of
local lore, along with news about life in the town and information
concerning people with limited capabilities, who are citizens of Kargopol
and cannot find work there. With the help of the Internet they now have a
chance to become acquainted with the rest of the world.
Kargopol is a city of skilled workers and the place of the all-Russian
festival, "Eclectic mosaic" ("Laskutnay mosaic"). The winners of an
ice-sculpting festival, held in the Swedish city of Lulea, live in
Kargopol. With a population of 13,000, the town is far from the capital
and other major cities--and that is why the Internet site is such an
important and serious mission for Sergei Belyayev. He is aided in his
mission by the Open Society Institute ("Otkritoe Obshestvo"), which
provides him with a free server.
GOOD WORK BY THE ARKHANGELSKI "DOBRODEI"
Arkhangelsk. "To the question, 'Who are you?', I answer, 'We are
pretenders. No one is going to help you if you just sit down and wait. We
earn our own living and we will probably earn millions.'"
So the correspondent of the Social Information Agency (ACI) was told by
Rosa Anatolevna Sherbakova, head of the new social organization which is a
charitable organ of the social, self-employed "Dobrodei" (meaning
"benefactor"or "philanthropist"). Sherbakova, once a teacher, is now a
pensioner but is not capable of simply sitting at home watching TV. She
heads the committee of pensioners and invalids under the "Charity and
Health" fund ("Miloserdie i Zdorovie").
She joined the fund in 1992 and was quickly followed by other capable and
skillful women, who began selling their homemade crafts. They are
essentially pensioners living in poverty, but who are not used to
passivity or complaining in life. This summer, however, due to repairs in
the building, the fund had to move to another location, which Sherbakova
found highly unsuitable. New premises were found and expansion followed.
Today "Dobrodei" is a new registered organization and has three rooms on a
3rd floor. There is no light, hardly any furniture (except for a few items
donated by various organizations in answer to Rosa Sherbakova's request)
and up until now there is no telephone. But members of "Dobrodei", under
Sherbakova's supervision, are truly optimistic and plan for the future.
Sherbakova is now busy circulating a number of letters to different
organizations with a request for help, for she has another plan: to obtain
a truck and petrol and travel throughout the region, collecting things
that may be useful to others.
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