Exclusive interview with Valeria Novodvorskaya's father. Valeria Novodvorskaya from the point of view of psychiatry Where did you end the war

Tempting offer

At the beginning of April this year, 2015, a friend, New York poetess Irina Aks, called me:

Rachel! Do you know that Valeria Novodvorskaya’s own father lives in America? He never gave an interview to anyone about his daughter. After her death, he withdrew into himself... A very interesting person, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, an active participant in our poetry evenings. And he is ready to meet with you, wants to talk about Valeria Ilyinichna.

It was difficult to refuse such an unexpected but tempting offer. Fortunately, friends from the original song club “Blue Trolleybus” kindly took me to visit Ilya Borisovich Burshtyn and his wife Lydia Nikolaevna, who live in the neighboring state of New Jersey. Burshtyn is the real name of Valeria Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya’s father.

He greeted me warmly, showed me the books donated by his daughter, and led me into a cozy, bright kitchen-dining room. And we talked very soulfully for two hours, which, thanks to the interesting interlocutor, flew by completely unnoticed for me.

...We were expecting a son, but a daughter was born

Ilya Borisovich, how did you meet Valeria’s mother?

Nina Feodorovna's father - a hereditary nobleman, a very nice man Fyodor Novodvorsky - lived in Moscow. Nina came to him from Belarus, where she lived with her mother, and entered the First Medical Institute, where my friend studied. After demobilization in 1947, I entered the radiophysics department of the Moscow Energy Institute. This is how we met Nina Fedorovna and got married in Moscow. And to give birth, Nina went to her mother in Baranovichi, pregnant - she was almost taken off the train, but she got home and a few hours later gave birth to a daughter.

It was May 17, 1950. My wife and I were expecting a son, but a girl was born - okay, healthy - and that’s good. Soon I passed the summer exams and also came to Belarus to visit my family and held my daughter in my arms for the first time. At the end of August, my wife and I left Lera with her grandmother and went to Moscow. I continued to study, and Nina went to work. She was a pediatrician and later worked at the Moscow Health Department.

We visited our daughter twice a year. Lera’s grandmother loved her very much and devoted a lot of effort to her upbringing. Her name was Marya Vladimirovna, she was strict, but she was disposed towards me, she trusted me to walk with Lera, to take my daughter sledding in the winter. After Nina Fedorovna and I divorced in 1967, Marya Vladimirovna moved to Moscow and lived with her daughter and granddaughter. I visited them and we talked for a long time. She lived a long, honorable life and died when I was already living in America.

Why did Valeria Ilyinichna bear her mother's surname?

Such is the time... Jewish surnames were unpopular. The Case of the Doctors-Poisoners was already gaining momentum, which in the investigation materials bore a frank title: “The Case of the Zionist Conspiracy in the MGB.” The flywheel of the “Case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee” was spinning up, especially after the murder of Mikhoels on the orders of Stalin in 1948. Relations between the USSR and the newly formed state of Israel were very cool - the reaction of Soviet Jews to Golda Meer's visit to Moscow was too enthusiastic. Stalin made his tricky plans for the resettlement of all Jews of the USSR to the Far East.

Is Burshtyn a Jewish surname? More likely Polish...

That's right. My parents - Sonya and Borukh - were from Poland; they came to Moscow from Warsaw in 1918. Then they wanted to return, but the Poles organized their own independent state and the parents remained in Soviet Russia. My older sister and brother were born in Warsaw, and this “questionnaire” fact really bothered them later, although at the time of their birth Poland was part of the Russian Empire. I didn’t know my grandparents - they died in the Warsaw ghetto. I only remember how I went to the post office with my father before the war, sent them parcels - already in the ghetto...

I have never hidden my Jewishness. The documents always stated: Ilya Borisovich Burshtyn. And it’s the same on the military ID. As a child, I didn’t know what my last name meant. Already working, I went on a business trip to Vilnius (there were many Poles there then) and heard a phrase that surprised me:

How much is this burshtyn of yours?

It turned out that in translation from Polish “burshtyn” means “amber”.

- "Gift of the Sun"?

I prefer the name “tears of the sea”...

Ilya Borisovich, how did you get to the front?

In July 1941, he joined the army as a volunteer. He was a signalman, that’s why he survived. Now I’m reading about the misadventures of the infantry during that war, and I’m even somehow ashamed to highlight my military merits. The infantry, of course, had it a hundred times harder.

Where did you end the war?

He fought on the Third Belorussian Front, ended the war in Koninsberg (Ilya Borisovich modestly keeps silent about his participation in the storming of the city and being awarded a military order).

Were you injured?

No. There were no injuries, and he was not taken prisoner. The Lord protected me. I don’t know - Jewish or Russian, but He kept me.

Ilya Borisovich, we all have one God, he has no nationality - I smile.

Do you really think so, Rachel? - my interlocutor is surprised

Of course, Ilya Borisovich. I understand why you are asking me about this, but for now let’s return to the military topic. After the war, did you immediately demobilize?

If only... Almost two years after the end of hostilities he served in Rzhev. I was an ordinary signalman, but already at the division headquarters, demobilized in the fall of 1947. My education allowed me to enter the newly organized Institute of International Relations. I saw an advertisement for recruitment at MGIMO and went to the chief of staff with a request to send me to study. He answered sharply: “You are not eligible for enrollment in this institute.” I hadn’t heard much about national quotas for those entering college, and I didn’t understand why, what was the matter? I realized it later - while processing orders at headquarters, I came across a “neat” phrase: “send to special-purpose units only persons whose nationality corresponds to the republics of the USSR.” Alas, Birobidzhan was only the capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region. Therefore, after demobilization, I immediately entered the Moscow Power Engineering Institute - Jews were accepted there. After graduation, he worked as an engineer.

(Author’s note. Here, Ilya Borisovich again, out of modesty, supports the official version set out on Wikipedia. In fact, he headed the electronics department at a large Moscow research institute that worked for the defense industry - he participated in the development of Russian air defense systems. And on my request to be photographed in a jacket with order bars, Ilya Borisovich only winced: “Why? Just to show off? Is the price of Soviet orders and medals high now? Moreover, the State Duma of Russia plans to deprive those of the right to the veteran’s pension they deserved in the battles with Nazi Germany.” participants of the Great Patriotic War who emigrated from Russia. I don’t know if this is true or idle speculation...)

Valeria's adolescence. Romantic rebel.

In Moscow, we lived in the VDNKh area,” Ilya Borisovich continues his fascinating story. - Our family was intelligent, but Lera went to an ordinary, proletarian school. I didn’t like it, several times I suggested that my wife transfer Lera to a good school in the center of Moscow, but Nina Fedorovna was against elitist education. I recently read the memoirs of Vertinsky’s daughter about how her parents sent her and her sister to a pioneer camp for the summer. It’s an interesting thing: well-bred girls returned home with lice and learned to use obscene language,” my interlocutor, wise with worldly experience, chuckles good-naturedly.

Lera was an excellent student. Not the only one in the class: we must pay tribute, among the proletarians there were also excellent students. The daughter grew up independent and independent, mature beyond her years. We have developed a good relationship with her, friendly and trusting. Of course, she could not help but notice the critical remarks about the authorities and the party system that Nina Fedorovna and I allowed ourselves to express at home. I gave my daughter Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” to read. Lera was not yet thirteen, but, surprisingly, she perceived everything correctly. Since childhood, she was a romantic person, a rebel, even at school she organized some kind of strikes. At one time I admired Cuba and Vietnam. She went to the district Komsomol committee and asked to send her to the Vietnam War as a fighter. They refused her and sent her home with instructions to come back when she learned to shoot. Imagine, for a whole year she rose before dawn on Sundays and went to the shooting range. She never learned, given her nearsightedness...

Fearless, but not reckless.

Lera was seventeen years old when I told her about my decision to divorce Nina Fedorovna. The daughter’s reaction was lightning fast: “I’m leaving with you!” I had to persuade her for a long time to stay with her mother, for whom the simultaneous loss of two close people would be a strong blow. I insisted: “Lera, we must stay.” My daughter understood me. Nina Fedorovna’s relatives did not blame me either; we continued to maintain respectful relations with them.

How did a young girl from an intelligent family plunge so decisively into the struggle against Soviet power? What was it: recklessness or desperate courage?

Of course, it was desperate courage. She was not reckless, but she did not have any sober calculations either; she was an addicted person. Deciding on her first serious action, Lera understood that she was risking a lot. By that time, she had graduated from high school with a silver medal and entered the French department of the prestigious Institute of Foreign Languages. Maurice Thorez."

(Author’s note. Ilya Milstein (famous Russian journalist - ED.) very accurately noted this quality of Lera: “Nobility coupled with fearlessness is a rarity. This physical impossibility of remaining silent, which forces a 19-year-old girl to scatter leaflets in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, ruining his career and life, dooming himself to a torture regime in psychiatric hospitals. And after his release, disseminate Samizdat, organize an underground party, an underground trade union... and finally go out with a poster to a demonstration, barely a whiff of perestroika and glasnost. “You can go out to the square, dare you.” go to the square..." - these lines of Alexander Galich decorated the membership card of the Democratic Union - an unprecedented party in which she was a member from the first to the last day. In splendid isolation").

Has Valeria Ilyinichna shared her plans with you?

Unfortunately no. I would try to stop her. But by that time I was already living in a new family; in 1967, Lydia Nikolaevna and I had a son and I began to pay less attention to my daughter. The only thing I remember from the events of the autumn of 1969: before going to the Kremlin Palace of Congresses on December 5, she read me her own poem - very angry, directed against the government, reproaching the introduction of tanks into Czechoslovakia.

Thank you party
For everything you have done and are doing,
For our current hatred
Thank you, party!

Thank you party
For everything that was betrayed and sold,
For the disgraced Motherland
Thank you, party!

Thank you party
For a slavish afternoon of double-mindedness,
For lies, betrayal and suffocation
Thank you, party!

Thank you party
For all the denunciations and informers,
For the torches on Prague square
Thank you, party!

For a paradise of factories and apartments,
Built on crimes
In the dungeons of old and today
A broken and black world...

Thank you party
For nights full of despair,
For our vile silence
Thank you, party!

Thank you party
For our bitter unbelief
Into the wreckage of lost truth
In the coming pre-dawn darkness...

Thank you party
For the weight of the acquired truth
And for the coming battles shots are fired
Thank you, party!

I liked the poem and praised it. But I really didn’t know, I couldn’t even imagine that Leroy’s sarcastically called “Thank you, party!” will become the text of a leaflet, numerous copies of which my daughter and several of her friends will boldly drop on the heads of visitors to the premises in which the most important socio-political events of the state were held.

First arrest

Lera and her friends were instantly arrested in the hall of the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, and accused of anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (Article 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR), - the voice of 92-year-old Ilya Nikolaevich sadly, but accurately mints the name and number of the article of the criminal code. “The daughter was placed in solitary confinement at the pre-trial detention center in Lefortovo,” he continues. - Daniil Romanovich Lunts, a KGB colonel who headed the diagnostic department at the All-Union Research Institute of General and Forensic Psychiatry named after V.P. Serbsky, which examined Soviet dissidents, began to come to her often. Daniil Lunts, together with the director of the institute, Georgy Vasilyevich Morozov, were the most famous representatives of the criminal practice of using psychiatry for political purposes in the USSR, followers of the concept of “sluggish (asymptomatic) schizophrenia” rejected by the world psychiatric community.

The author of this concept was the co-chairman of the inpatient forensic psychiatric examination A.V. Snezhnevsky. Luntz openly and mercilessly provoked Leroux and she deservedly called him “an inquisitor, a sadist and a collaborator collaborating with the GESTAPO.” He examined not only my daughter - among his “patients” were famous dissidents Pyotr Grigorenko, Sinyavsky, Yesenin-Volpin. Fainberg, Yakhimovich, Bukovsky, Shikhanovich. And of course, Natalya Gorbanevskaya, with whom Lera became friends and together, was in the same ward for compulsory treatment in a special psychiatric hospital in Kazan. The so-called “treatment” in Kazan was cruel and inhumane, and of course, seriously undermined my daughter’s health.

Ilya Borisovich, did you personally visit your daughter in Kazan? If so, what did you see there?

Nina Fedorovna and I took turns going on “dates” to Kazan. Leroux was constantly reproached for his friendship with more experienced dissidents. In particular - in friendship with Gorbanevskaya; I often saw Natalya when I came to this “special hospital”. The meetings took place in a large room with a wide and long table, on both sides of which the convicts sat opposite visiting relatives. About 20 convicts were brought into the room at the same time. There was an overseer standing near the table - food transfers were allowed once a month. It was impossible to pass a note or take someone’s hand, although there was no glass partition like in a prison cell.

Lera was a very strong, resilient person; she rarely allowed herself to complain even to her closest people. But in Kazan, such cruel methods of “treatment” were used on her that I could not help but go to the head physician - I no longer remember the name of this medical service officer, many years have passed. He asked her to stop using electric shock and savage injections on her daughter - after all, Lera was healthy, she was simply not pleasing to the authorities. A very young girl... And if you try really hard, you can find a clue for a psychiatric diagnosis in any of us.

He directly told me: “Yes, you are right - in every person, if you look closely, you can find some kind of psychiatric abnormalities. You just need to not look closely.”

The moral of his statement is simple: you can’t stand out from the crowd. This was the goal of punitive psychiatry. I recently talked with the famous poet, dissident and hereditary psychiatrist Boris Khersonsky. He told me about the tragic fate of the Ukrainian dissident Ganna Mikhailenko, author of the book "KGB Diagnosis - Schizophrenia." And he confirmed that the diagnosis invented by Snezhnevsky is no longer included in the official classifications of mental illness (DSM-5). ICD - 10.

I completely agree with this point of view. Natalya Gorbanevskaya wrote about the same thing in her article “Shameful Legacy” - this is her review of Viktor Nekipelov’s book “The Institute of Fools”, which attracted serious attention:
“If we talk about the “system” and about today, it is impossible not to note: although in the early 90s, in the wake of the revelations of punitive psychiatry that finally reached the Soviet and Russian press, the situation has largely changed for the better, the Serbsky Institute, in the past the stronghold of this system of psychiatric persecution, again decisively turned to the past... and further: refusal to face the past, to reckon with it, is a dangerous thing. And for the mental health of an individual - as a patient or potential patient, and for the psychiatrist himself, and for the mental health of society"

may cost the life of Valeria Ilyinichna’s mother

A month ago, a serious scandal broke out around the apartment of the 87-year-old mother of the recently deceased famous dissident and fighter for democracy Valeria Novodvorskaya. The newspapers were full of headlines: “Black realtors are trying to take away the Moscow apartment of Valeria Novodvorskaya’s mother,” “A scam is being carried out with the housing of the mother of a famous politician,” “Municipal deputy Tatyana Logatskaya is involved in the scandal.”

MK conducted its own investigation.

As it turned out, Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya was abandoned for almost a year and left at the mercy of two women, nurses from Ukraine. Having no medical training, they injected the elderly man with potent diuretic drugs, tranquilizers and sleeping pills. Under their “sensitive” supervision, Nina Fedorovna lost her eye and almost died from sepsis.

Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya called her daughter Lera Lyalechka. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

“Lera was afraid that if she died, her mother would end up in a nursing home”

The faded five-story panel building on 4th Maryina Roshcha Street, where Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya lives, is no different from the nearby Khrushchev buildings.

The house is old, the poplars have grown almost to the roof, the old residents have known each other for half a century. They also remember Valeria Novodvorskaya’s father, Ilya Borisovich Burshtyn. He was a front-line soldier, fought as a signalman on the 3rd Belorussian Front. Then he worked for the defense industry, heading the electronics department at a large research institute.

Valeria’s mother, Nina Fedorovna, a pediatrician by training, was an “emergency room” for all residents. As the neighbors say, “everyone ran to her with childhood pains, cramps, cramps.” Then, when she worked at the Moscow Health Department, she often helped neighbors get “medical” coupons to various clinics.

When Lera was in 10th grade, her parents divorced. Ilya Borisovich moved out, he had another family, and Nina Fedorovna’s mother, Maria Vladimirovna, came to the Novodvorskys from Baranovichi, with whom Lera lived until school. The family’s grandmother’s name was Bantik, and Lera’s name was Lyalechka.

Everyone in the house feels sorry for Nina Fedorovna.

“God forbid how much she and Lera drank,” says neighbor Anna. “Then my daughter decided to go to the Vietnam War. I went to learn to shoot for a whole year. Then, while fighting the communist regime, she scattered leaflets in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, distributed samizdat, organized underground parties and trade unions. From numerous searches in the house, Lera’s arrests, solitary confinement, and hunger strikes, Nina Fedorovna began to have early gray hair.

Valeria Novodvorskaya died on July 12, 2014. Since then, the neighbors have practically not seen Nina Fedorovna.

— She had two nurses from Ukraine, Galya and Sasha. Only they practically did not take their ward grandmother out for a walk. But the naked Sphynx cat was constantly walked on a leash,” says Maria Sergeevna, the head of the house. — And when they asked: “How is Nina Fedorovna?” - they waved it off: “He’s going crazy!”

“After Lera’s death, one of the caregivers became worried that there were jewelry in the house, and she did not want to be responsible for their possible loss,” says Tatyana Logatskaya, municipal deputy of the Khoroshevo-Mnevniki district. — In the presence of four people, an inventory of watches, rings, and chains was compiled. Saidar Sheyafetdinov (an activist of the Democratic Union, he worked as a driver for Valeria Novodvorskaya - author) volunteered to take the bag with valuables for safekeeping. Then I noticed that behind the glass of the bookshelves there were photographs of nurses. I was surprised, the nurses are not family members after all. Another time, when we spent almost six hours sorting out Lera’s newspaper and magazine articles, the nurse was having fun at the computer, while Nina Fedorovna, indifferent to everything, sat in a chair.

Members of the Democratic Union Nikolai Zlotnik and Saidar Sheyafetdinov voluntarily took care of Nina Fedorovna.

At farewell to Valeria Novodvorskaya, many people put money into a special box to help her mother. The human rights activist was worried that if she died, Nina Fedorovna would end up in a nursing home. They say that a large sum to pay for the funeral was sent by Alfred Koch, in 1996-1997 the chairman of the State Property Committee of Russia, deputy prime minister in the government of Viktor Chernomyrdin, now living in Germany. The funeral was paid for by The New Times magazine, where Valeria Novodvorskaya worked.

— Nikolai Zlotnik claimed that he had an oral agreement with the nurses. From the money collected, he paid monthly for the work of sisters Galina and Alexandra. Saidar Sheyafetdinov, having a power of attorney to manage Nina Fedorovna’s bank account, gave them money weekly for the elderly woman’s food and other needs.

“Lera hired the sisters from Ukraine; someone recommended them to her,” says Yuri Baumstein, the only worker in the Democratic Union party who has been friends with Lera for 21 years.

Valeria Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya’s mistake, according to her comrade-in-arms Yuri Baumstein, was that she did not leave a will.

“Nikolai Zlotnik was embarrassed to tell Lera to put her affairs in order, but Lera herself somehow didn’t think about it,” Yuri shares with us. “She was a brilliant person, but she had little interest in worldly life.

“I can’t imagine Lera cooking borscht,” says Tatyana Logatskaya, in turn. “Her mother and her au pair, a dear woman Anechka, were busy in the kitchen. But Lera was very hospitable, generous, kind and very open. Everyone left her with pockets full of gifts in the form of sweets.

Nina Fedorovna was not immediately told about the death of her daughter, her beloved, only Lyalechka.

Soon, friends visiting Nina Fedorovna began to notice bruises on her face and body. The nurse explained their appearance by the fact that the elderly woman was constantly falling.

“The question of replacing nurses was raised before Zlotnik, but he flatly refused to change these “experienced specialists,” says Tatyana. “Then events began to develop rapidly. On March 10, 2015, Saidar Sheyafetdinov arrived with money and saw that Nina Fedorovna’s left eye was red. It is strange that Alexandra’s nurse did not tell anyone about this, not even her “employer” Zlotnik. Sheyafetdinov called the clinic and the Moscow Health Department.

On March 11, ophthalmologist Olga Georgievna Plykina came and advised Nina Fedorovna to be hospitalized, about which she made a corresponding entry in the chart. Then the doctor called back three times and inquired whether Nina Fedorovna had received the medications she had prescribed.

Nurse Alexandra assured that all appointments were being fulfilled. She told the caller Saidar Sheyafetdinov that Nina Fedorovna was on the mend. As it turned out later, this was not so. On March 16, Sheyafetdinov arrived and was horrified: Nina Fedorovna’s eye was swollen. I was out of town. Saidar took Nina Fedorovna to a specialized eye clinic on Mamonovsky Lane, from where she was urgently sent to the 1st City Hospital. In the emergency room, Nina Fedorovna’s appearance shocked the doctors: “How did you let a person go like that?” Sheyafetdinov nodded at the nurse, abdicating all responsibility.

On the morning of March 17, Nina Fedorovna was operated on. The eye had to be removed. Delay could be fatal.

— In the hospital, one of Nina Fedorovna’s neighbors in the ward, Panna Mikhailovna, asked me: “Why do you keep such nurses? In front of you, they call your grandmother a bunny, but as soon as you leave, they almost drag Nina Fedorovna by the hair,” continues Tatyana Logatskaya. — While one nanny was replacing another, I stayed with Nina Fedorovna in the hospital. It was impossible not to notice that her scalp was covered with a white crust, and her face was covered in scabs. Apparently, it had not been washed for a long time. While changing Nina Fedorovna's clothes, I saw that almost all the folds of skin on her body were sprinkled with a thick layer of talc, under which wounds were visible - bedsores, which only happen from poor care. But Nina Fedorovna is not a bedridden patient, she can move on her own, she just needs to be held by the hand and guided. I washed Nina Fedorovna and treated her skin.

Ropes and belts from dressing gowns were tied to the old chair where Nina Fedorovna usually sat during the day. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

— It turned out that the elderly woman had glaucoma. I don’t think that Sheyafetdinov could not have known about this, because he had previously taken Nina Fedorovna to a specialized clinic. With glaucoma, it is very important to monitor intraocular pressure. With glaucoma, the optic nerve dies gradually, and then in an instant the person is plunged into darkness. To avoid this, Nina Fedorovna had to take special drops twice a day, which the nurses did not do. It is now impossible to determine at what point the woman became blind. Now she only distinguishes between light and darkness. Surprisingly, after Lera’s death, Nina Fedorovna was not taken to any doctor, and until March 11, 2015, not a single doctor was called to her home.

The house where Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya lives.

“There were no bedding or things in the house”

Surprisingly, with a whole bunch of diseases, Nina Fedorovna was not registered as a disability, she was not prescribed any medications or absorbent underwear.

With a whole bunch of diseases, Nina Fedorovna was not registered as disabled. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

On March 29, her birthday, Nina Fedorovna was in such a sleepy state that she could not open her eyes to see her friends and colleagues who had come to see her.

“It was later, after discovering entries in a diary forgotten by the nurses, that it became clear that Lera’s mother was under the influence of potent drugs,” says Tatyana. “In front of us, one of them put an elderly woman to sleep, and in the clothes in which she was sitting at the table. Instead of a sheet, a terry towel was spread on the bed.

“I offered to help register Nina Fedorovna’s disability,” says Tatyana. — At the district clinic at her place of residence, the elderly woman didn’t even have a card. We put Nina Fedorovna in the wheelchair kindly offered at the clinic and began to visit the doctors. The endocrinologist was surprised that the person was conscious and not talking, and called a neurologist into the office, who, after examining Nina Fedorovna, suggested that the patient was “loaded” with phenazepam.

Entries in the diary confirm that “professional nurses” injected Nina Fedorovna with a powerful diuretic drug, which none of the doctors prescribed. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

Strokes reminiscent of Nina Fedorovna's signature were found in the diary. Someone was clearly practicing to copy her signature. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

Despite Zlotnik’s resistance, the negligent nurses were denied further work in caring for Nina Fedorovna. On April 4, without any apology for the harm caused to their health, saying goodbye: “There is no one here to wish good luck,” the sisters, wrapped in a sphinx sweater, left the apartment.

— When leaving, they forgot their cosmetic bag, which contained six packs of phenazepam. This highly active tranquilizer can only be bought with a prescription; no one prescribed it to Nina Fedorovna,” says Tatyana. “We also discovered the antipsychotic drug chlorprothixene, the nootropic drug piracetam, and the tranquilizer thioridazine (Sonopax). How these drugs got into the apartment is completely unclear. All of them were handed over to the local police officer in front of witnesses.

The Sphinx, which belonged to one of the nurses, slept on the bed with Nina Fedorovna. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

From the abandoned diary kept by the nurses, we found out that they injected Nina Fedorovna with a strong, fast-acting diuretic, Lasix. This is an emergency medicine. It must be used with extreme caution; water drains from a person after about two hours of use. At the same time, in order for the heart muscle to withstand, the patient is usually given tablets containing magnesium and potassium. Doctors know this. But none of the nurses had a medical education.

After the nurses left, Nina Fedorovna began to gradually come to her senses: she answered questions, ate on her own.

“She was dehydrated by Lasix, terribly hungry, she couldn’t eat for six days,” says Tatyana.

In the diary, the nurses noted all the purchases they made. Receipts were included with the records.

“They fed Nina Fedorovna, in my opinion, very poorly,” says Tatyana Logatskaya. “While I was still there, the nurse decided to feed her millet porridge.” I looked into the jar where the cereal was stored and saw a food moth there.

In the diary, the nurses noted all the purchases they made. The records were accompanied by receipts, which always included cat food. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

We leaf through the left diary. For their ward, the nurse bought yogurt products and curd products, which, unlike yogurt and cottage cheese, are fermented not with milk fat, but with palm or coconut oil. There are also bouillon cubes there. And right there: cat food, cat litter, medicine for the cat in the amount of 890 rubles. And, apparently, for their loved ones: Abrau-Durso champagne, a low-alcohol drink, a carnival hat.

“And for all this, without hesitation, they included checks.” Nina Fedorovna’s pension also paid for cellular communications and the Internet,” Tatyana is indignant. “It was when they were connecting the Internet that Lera stepped with her left foot on one of the paper clips with which the cable is attached to the wall. Her heel began to fester. And after forced treatment in a psychiatric hospital, where she was placed by a court verdict for scattering anti-Soviet leaflets in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, she simply could not stand the doctors. Lera self-medicated, and then we threw away a whole bag of painkillers. A festering wound on the leg caused sepsis. Lera died from infectious-toxic shock.

With four hands, Tatyana and her friend cleaned the squalid apartment.

“There was no bed linen or Nina Fedorovna’s things in the house,” says Tatyana Logatskaya.

— Nina Fedorovna’s pension is quite big, about 23 thousand rubles.

All these medications were given to Nina Fedorovna and injected intramuscularly. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

- And really, out of this money it was impossible to allocate 100 rubles for panties? — asks municipal deputy Logatskaya. “I wrote a statement to the Maryina Roshcha police station demanding that a criminal case be opened for causing harm to the health of Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya, attaching an explanation on four pages, where I outlined in detail everything that happened.

“Friends wanted to put Nina Fedorovna in a psychiatric hospital”

The caregivers were to be controlled by those who gave them salaries and money for Nina Fedorovna’s maintenance—Valeria Novodvorskaya’s party comrades Nikolai Zlotnik and Saidar Sheyafetdinov.

“As I understand, at first the nurses, by agreement with Nikolai Zlotnik, took the money left by Leroy from the home safe, and then, when the dollar exchange rate changed, Nikolai began to pay them against receipt, but not $1,200 a month, but $650,” says Tatiana. — When Nina Fedorovna lost her eye, the question of replacing nurses became acute.

Nikolai Zlotnik reluctantly gathered Lera’s friends and associates. At the same time, he said that he did not want to pay money for the care of Nina Fedorovna to anyone other than these sisters from Ukraine. In addition, it was unknown how much money was available and how long it would last. The phrase was said: Nina Fedorovna’s apartment goes to the state. Everyone present was categorically against this. They decided that the apartment should go to the one who will take care of Nina Fedorovna. And it is best to enter into an annuity agreement with lifelong maintenance and dependency.

Tatyana Logatskaya says that she was ready to look after Nina Fedorovna, invest her money, her labor, pay for a 24-hour nurse and all the necessary medical prescriptions. Nina Fedorovna was not against this. Saidar Sheyafetdinov had all of Nina Fedorovna’s documents. In addition to the general power of attorney that he had in his hands, he was given a second power of attorney, according to which he was to collect documents for the execution of an annuity agreement between Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya and Tatyana Mikhailovna Logatskaya. At first Sheyafetdinov agreed, but the next day he was replaced.

— On April 14, Nina Fedorovna and Saidar and I went to the hospital to see an endocrinologist. - says Tatyana. “And then he told me: “I don’t trust you, I’ll arrange the rent for myself.” And in general, we are going to the clinic for the last time. I’m taking Nina Fedorovna to the village. I made peace with my wife, she agreed to look after Nina Fedorovna.” I rushed to the doctors: “Forbid us from taking Nina Fedorovna away.” After all, a disabled person of the first group must be regularly shown to doctors, about which the specialists made a corresponding entry in the card.

Valeria Novodvorskaya feared that after her death, Nina Fedorovna would end up in a nursing home. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

On April 15, 2015, the documents previously issued by Nina Fedorovna to Saidar Sheyafetdinov were cancelled. Notarized copies of the documents were handed to him in the office of the head of the Maryina Roshcha police department on the same day.

— We returned home with Nina Fedorovna, Borovoy mentioned somewhere that “the apartment was seized by black realtors,” and the siege began. The police, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, an ambulance, and a bunch of journalists arrived all at once. Only law enforcement officers and doctors were allowed into the apartment. The doctors examined Nina Fedorovna, were convinced that there was no reason to place her in the hospital, and left.

The next day, Sheyafetdinov brought two friends of Nina Fedorovna, who were at her birthday party. The ladies came to send Lera's mother to the hospital. Why they called another ambulance, mentioning stroke and diabetes. Doctors found no reason for hospitalization: there was no stroke or diabetes.

Soon the third ambulance arrived, and one of the friends came with a referral from the local doctor to the PND (psychoneurological dispensary) with a power of attorney received from Sheyafetdinov under... a revoked power of attorney. Nina Fedorovna is not seen at the PND; she is not registered. The doctors came to the conclusion that this was not a psychiatric case and left.

But the story didn't end there. While Tatyana Logatskaya went to pick up diapers for an elderly woman, a relative, a certain Marina, arrived at Nina Fedorovna’s apartment from nowhere, accompanied by a police officer.

The female volunteer who remained to look after Nina Fedorovna, Lyubov Stolyarova, says:

— The district police officer said that Marina presented a document confirming her relationship with Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya. And he called her “niece.” When I inquired about her intentions, Marina said: “I don’t have to report to you.”

Saidar Sheyafetdinov “went into the shadows.” It is not possible to contact him. Photo: Tatyana Logatskaya

An old friend of Valeria Novodvorskaya, Yuri Baumstein, in turn, notes:

“Nobody knows where this relative came from.” Lera never mentioned her. I didn’t see her either at the funeral in the Sakharov Center or at the wake.

The 92-year-old father of Valeria Novodvorskaya, Ilya Burshtyn, who now lives in America, in the state of New Jersey, could reveal the family secret.

— I spoke with Ilya Borisovich on the phone. He said that Nina Fedorovna has no direct relatives,” says Tatyana, in turn. “But at the same time he said that Nina Fedorovna’s mother, Maria Vladimirovna, was married twice. The first time was for Zinovy Moiseevich Lesov, who already had a daughter, Irina. The second time she married a hereditary nobleman Fyodor Vladimirovich Novodvorsky and in this marriage gave birth to a daughter, Nina. Apparently, being married to Lesov, she adopted his daughter Irina. Irina Zinovievna is alive, she is 89 years old. And she has a daughter, Marina.

"The battle for the inheritance is still ahead"

It is difficult to find out what is happening to Nina Fedorovna now. The telephone in the apartment is disconnected, the call does not work. Knocking on the door is useless. Even the local doctor, who must patronize a disabled person of the first group every week, cannot get to the elderly woman.

Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya continues to be cared for by a nurse from the Belgorod region, brought by Sheyafetdinov (“MK” was unable to talk to him. Sheyafetdinov does not answer calls).

“In any case, the nurse who came out onto the balcony, to whom I told that I had left a bag of diapers and pads at the door, took them away,” says Tatyana.

How the work of previous caregivers was controlled is described above.

The situation there is stable now,” Nikolai Pavlovich Zlotnik assures me.

It was not possible to talk to Nina Fedorovna’s relative Marina who showed up. She is either away or not picking up the phone.

As far as we have been able to find out, several people now want to become the legal representatives of Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya.

This is, in principle, not bad. Nina Fedorovna will be helped with housework, and everyone, be it a trustee or guardian, will be required to report to government agencies for the condition of their ward. But what is happening now?

Both Saidar Sheyafetdinov and Nina Fedorovna’s relative Marina may be among the trustees.

At the same time, Natalya Vasilievna Kosheleva, deputy head of the Maryina Roshcha district administration for social issues, shared with us:

“We came to Nina Fedorovna’s house several times, knocked, said that the council told us through a closed door that they were not waiting for us.

— A social worker comes to see Nina Fedorovna?

“The fact of the matter is that Nina Fedorovna or her legal representative must contact the social protection center with a statement and ask to be served by a social worker. The elderly woman herself is practically blind, and she has no legal representative.

Among the entire kaleidoscope of citizens who revolve around Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya, only Logatskaya undertook to clear away the pile of paper, who at least helped her register a disability of the first group. And this is a big deal. Now there are several people who would like to legally obtain the right to enter the apartment and help this elderly person. To do this, you need to provide a number of documents to the guardianship authorities, including a certificate stating that the person is healthy, has property in Moscow and does not pursue any selfish goals.

If several applications are submitted to the guardianship and trusteeship department at once, a commission will meet and ask Nina Fedorovna who she wants to be with? And then, based on the numerous certificates provided, the commission will decide who is more suitable for the role of trustee.

All this takes time. And a blind and helpless woman needs care and care now more than ever.

Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya’s two-room apartment in Khrushchev is estimated by realtors at 7-8 million rubles. And it is quite possible that a will has already been written, and more than one. At least in the diary left by the nurses from Ukraine, strokes were found reminiscent of the signature of Nina Fedorovna Novodvorskaya. Someone was clearly practicing to copy her signature. This means that the battle for the apartment is still ahead.

Novodvorskaya's father: During forced "treatment" in a psychiatric hospital, Lera was forever deprived of the opportunity to become a mother

The father of Russian oppositionist Valeria Novodvorskaya, who died on July 12, 2014, 92-year-old Ilya Burshtyn lives in the United States. Journalist Rahel Gedrich talked with Ilya Borisovich for the Krugozor publication about the childhood years of the future dissident, her first political action, the horrors of punitive psychiatry to which Novodvorskaya was subjected to by the USSR authorities, and her relationship with her daughter after his departure to the USA.

At the beginning of April this year, 2015, a friend, New York poetess Irina Aks, called me:

- Rachel! Do you know that Valeria Novodvorskaya’s own father lives in America? He never gave an interview to anyone about his daughter. After her death, he withdrew into himself... A very interesting person, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, an active participant in our poetry evenings. And he is ready to meet with you, wants to talk about Valeria Ilyinichna.

It was difficult to refuse such an unexpected but tempting offer. Luckily, my friends from the original song club “Blue Trolleybus” kindly took me to visit Ilya Borisovich Burshtyn and his wife Lidia Nikolaevna, who live in the neighboring state of New Jersey. Burshtyn is the real name of Valeria Ilyinichna Novodvorskaya’s father.

- Ilya Borisovich, how did you meet Valeria’s mother?

Nina Fedorovna's father, a hereditary nobleman, a very nice man, Fyodor Novodvorsky, lived in Moscow. Nina came to him from Belarus, where she lived with her mother, and entered the First Medical Institute, where my friend studied. After demobilization in 1947, I entered the radiophysics department of the Moscow Power Engineering Institute. This is how we met Nina Fedorovna and got married in Moscow. And to give birth, Nina went to her mother in Baranovichi, pregnant - she was almost taken off the train, but she got home and a few hours later gave birth to a daughter.

We visited our daughter twice a year. Lera's grandmother loved her very much and devoted a lot of effort to her upbringing. Her name was Marya Vladimirovna, she was strict, but she was disposed towards me, she trusted me to walk with Lera and take my daughter sledding in the winter. After Nina Fedorovna and I divorced in 1967, Marya Vladimirovna moved to Moscow and lived with her daughter and granddaughter. I visited them and we talked for a long time. She lived a long, honorable life and died when I was already living in America.

- Why did Valeria Ilyinichna bear her mother’s surname?

Such is the time... Jewish surnames were unpopular. The case of the poisoning doctors was already gaining momentum, which in the investigation materials bore a frank title: “The case of the Zionist conspiracy in the MGB.” The flywheel of the “Case of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee” was spinning up, especially after the murder of Mikhoels on the orders of Stalin in 1948. Relations between the USSR and the newly formed state of Israel were very cool - the reaction of Soviet Jews to Golda Meir's visit to Moscow was too enthusiastic. Stalin made his tricky plans for the resettlement of all Jews of the USSR to the Far East.

- Is Burshtyn a Jewish surname? More likely Polish...

- How much is this burshtyn of yours?

It turned out that in translation from Polish “burshtyn” means “amber”.

- "Gift of the Sun"?

I prefer the name “tears of the sea”...

- Ilya Borisovich, how did you get to the front?

In July 1941 he volunteered for the army. He was a signalman, that’s why he survived. Now I’m reading about the misadventures of the infantry during that war, and I’m even somehow ashamed to highlight my military merits. The infantry, of course, had it a hundred times harder.

-Where did you end the war?

He fought on the Third Belorussian Front and ended the war in Koenigsberg ( Ilya Borisovich modestly keeps silent about participation in the storming of the city and awarding him with a military order).

- Were you wounded?

No. There were no injuries, and he was not taken prisoner. The Lord protected me. I don’t know - Jewish or Russian, but He kept me.

“Ilya Borisovich, we all have one God, he has no nationality,” I smile.

Do you really think so, Rachel? - my interlocutor is surprised

- Of course, Ilya Borisovich. I understand why you are asking me this, but for now let’s return to the military topic. After the war, did you immediately demobilize?

If only... Almost two years after the end of hostilities he served in Rzhev. He was an ordinary signalman, but already at division headquarters; he was demobilized in the fall of 1947. My education allowed me to enter the newly organized Institute of International Relations. I saw an advertisement for recruitment at MGIMO and went to the chief of staff with a request to send me to study. He answered sharply: “You are not eligible for enrollment in this institute.” I hadn’t heard much about national quotas for those entering college, and I didn’t understand why, what was the matter? I realized it later - while processing orders at headquarters, I came across a “neat” phrase: “send to special-purpose units only persons whose nationality corresponds to the republics of the USSR.” Alas, Birobidzhan was only the capital of the Jewish Autonomous Region. Therefore, after demobilization, I immediately entered the Moscow Power Engineering Institute - Jews were accepted there. After graduation, he worked as an engineer.

(Author's note. Here, Ilya Borisovich again, out of modesty, supports the official version set out on Wikipedia. In fact, he headed the electronics department at a large Moscow research institute that worked for the defense industry - he participated in the development of Russian air defense systems. And in response to my request to be photographed in a jacket with order bars, Ilya Borisovich only winced: “Why? Just to show off? Is the price of Soviet orders and medals high now? Moreover, the State Duma of Russia plans to deprive the right to a veteran’s pension deserved in battles with Nazi Germany those participants in the Great Patriotic War who emigrated from Russia. I don’t know whether this is true or idle fiction...)

Since childhood, she was a romantic person, a rebel, even at school she organized some kind of strikes

In Moscow, we lived in the VDNKh area,” Ilya Borisovich continues his fascinating story. - Our family was intelligent, but Lera went to an ordinary, proletarian school. I didn’t like it, several times I suggested that my wife transfer Lera to a good school in the center of Moscow, but Nina Fedorovna was against elitist education. I recently read the memoirs of Vertinsky’s daughter about how her parents sent her and her sister to a pioneer camp for the summer. It’s an interesting thing: well-bred girls returned home with lice, they learned to use obscene language,” my interlocutor, wise with worldly experience, chuckles good-naturedly.

Lera was an excellent student. Not the only one in the class: we must pay tribute, among the proletarians there were also excellent students. The daughter grew up independent and independent, mature beyond her years. We have developed a good relationship with her, friendly and trusting. Of course, she could not help but notice the critical remarks about the authorities and the party system that Nina Fedorovna and I allowed ourselves to express at home. I gave my daughter Solzhenitsyn’s story “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” to read. Lera was not yet thirteen, but, surprisingly, she perceived everything correctly. Since childhood, she was a romantic person, a rebel, even at school she organized some kind of strikes. At one time I admired Cuba and Vietnam. She went to the district Komsomol committee and asked to be sent to the Vietnam War as a fighter. They refused her and sent her home with instructions to come back when she learned to shoot. Imagine, for a whole year she got up early on Sundays and went to the shooting range. She never learned, given her nearsightedness...

Deciding on her first serious action, Lera understood that she was risking a lot

- How did a young girl from an intelligent family plunge so decisively into the struggle against Soviet power? What was it: recklessness or desperate courage?

(Author's note. Ilya Milstein (a famous Russian journalist) very accurately noted this quality of Lera: “Nobility multiplied by fearlessness is a rarity. This physical impossibility of remaining silent, which forces a 19-year-old girl to scatter leaflets in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, ruining her career and life, dooming to a torture regime in psychiatric hospitals. And after liberation, distribute Samizdat, organize an underground party, an underground trade union... and finally go out with a poster to a demonstration, barely a whiff of perestroika and glasnost. “You can go to the square, you dare to go to the square...” - these lines of Alexander Galich decorated the membership card of the Democratic Union - an unprecedented party in which she was a member from the first to the last day. In splendid isolation").

- Valeria Ilyinichna shared her plans with you?