"DON'T BECOME CANNON-FODDER..."

Yury Vasilyev

(photo by Albert Musin)

Dmitry Neverovsky is gone - a person who only insisted on

observance of the Constitution

A young man Dmitry Neverovsky lived in Obninsk, he lived in a

good freethinking family. His father is a proud Russian Pole

whose name Anton Kazimirovich suits him very well; his mother,

Tatyana Kotlyar, nowadays is the leader of Obninsk human rights

group, she has always been a very inconvenient for any

authority person. The atmosphere itself of the city of nuclear

science presupposed some academic liberties as a compensation

provided by the regime to the inhabitants of Obninsk who worked

in nuclear centers. So Dima grew up free; we have a lot of

people like him, thank God.

Dmitry Neverovsky grew up and like Soviet dissidents of old

times decided that everything written in the Constitution of

the Russian Federation must be observed. Including the article

59.3 which allows people to conscientiously object and perform

the alternative service. In the beginning, in 1995, he left his

training at the military faculty of the institute of atomic

energetics, protesting against the first Chechen war. Then, in

1997, he notified the military commissar that he intended to

perform the alternative service: "I don't want to serve in the

army which commits crimes".

Then there was a trial for evading the military service, a

verdict to the full extent (two years), 146 days of prison for

literally following the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

Then there was the amnesty which he refused to accept: "I am

not a criminal, observe the laws". Having working his way of a

human rights activist up to this point, Dmitry Antonovich

Neverovsky (born in 1973) became a unique person for Russia of

new millenium.

And now - he is gone. At night of April 4, at three o'clock, a

fire began in Tatyana Kotlyar's house. His parents were rescued

from fire, Dima wasn't.

Short circuit

"I do not believe that it was an accident", the human rights

activist Valery Borshchev said near Dima's tomb. "Of course, I

haven't any proofs..."

The same rumours are afloat in the city: Tatyana Kotlyar who

recently became the deputy of Obninsk City Council had many

enemies, and they say that Dmitry was persecuted by a loony who

threatened to kill him.

However, the investigation came to a banal conclusion: a short

circuit in wiring, a fire in the wooden house, carbonic oxide.

An accident; the case is closed. There aren't any evidences.

"He taught me to live "

A cemetery in surburbs of Obninsk: new tombs are very close to

the garages located nearby, electro-transmission wire iz

buzzing above the heads. There are many young people near the

fresh tomb: Dmitry helped them to organize dramatic studio, to

settle problems with examination, advised on legal matters...

But more often people came to his house simply to talk about

life, sometimes - all together; then it was the "Neverovsky's

seminar" known to the youth of Obninsk and its vicinities.

"He taught me to live", Alexey from Kaluga sais. He attended

Dmitry's seminars for a year and a half. "What we were doing?

"We talked, played role games. For example, there was a game

recently: three persons play security guards, the others -

bootless - are "behind bars" and wait for the death in the gas

chamber. Everyone is rummaging in his soul, living new

experiences: the first ones think "if only they would be

brought away at last, so that they suffer less", the others -

"What have we done?".

Dmitry Neverovsky didn't participate in this game - he was

preparing another one - for hundred persons.

"After a global war", Alexey tells, "three races survived. One

of them is able to dig the ground, another one - to make

instruments of work, the third one - to think and restore the

science. All three races hate each other, but if one of them is

destroyed - nobody will survive. Something like computer game

"Warcraft", only that is almost the life".

Alexey doesn't know whether there will be more seminars. He put

his favourite sword in the tomb ("No, I'm not a tolkienist, I'm

just a knight, like Dima was"):

"There is evil there too. Let him beat it off."

"I could not..."

Ivan Klevakichev, four years younger than Dmitry, tried to

follow his path too:

"I was a witness for the defence at Dima's trial. The same

military commissar who had detained him, saw me there: "You,

come here...". The day after the verdict was pronounced, I was

handed the call-up papers. I submitted the application for

"alternative service", then I stayed for four days in the cell

of pretrial detention. Then there was a trial on the same

accusation of "evading the military service", the sentence was

a year on condition. Exactly in a year and one day I got new

call-up papers. I gave up, I couldn't support it anymore - I

went to the army. I squabbled with Dima for this reason: he was

released from custody by that time and he begged me not to make

mistakes which one can't wash off..."

Ivan spent a half-year in the training camp, then he was sent

to the construction battalion in Khankala: not the hottest

place in Chechnya and without the submachine gun in hands. He

spent there ten days, but that was enough.

"This war is waged not for petroleum: it is burnt out by

special teams there, when you fly an helicopter - the ground is

covered with torches.

"They beat Chechnya for money, for fraud with construction: at

night they fire large-caliber machine guns at windows of

apartment houses, and in the afternoon they begin to restore

them. It is okay now: experienced soldiers say that formerly

they fired mortars at liberated Grozny... And nobody will find

the truth. I saw TV news in Khankala: the seventy fourth

division was removed from Chehnya with an orchestra, do you

remember? And no TV-channel says what happened after that: the

echelon was shot, many people were killed, tens were wounded. I

was with them in the hospital in Krasnodar, they told me all

that..."

Ivan was in the hospital because of a "nervous disease" - and

it is clear that he isn't a malingerer: his eyes are fixed on

one point, the speech is monotonous. He came back home the day

after the death of Neverovsky:

"I called, wanted to make him glad - and... If I couldn't say

the last good-byes to him, I don't know how I would live".

Without pathos and press

In January, at the All-Russia human rights congress we talked

with Dmitry Neverovsky about Chechnya. The question was a

rather slippery decision of the congress: recognition of the

genocide in Chechnya - in the appeal of human rights activists

to Russia, and more mild definition "on the verge of genocide"

- in the letter to the PACE in Strasbourg. "It's probably more

correct, it is better this way", Dmitry said.

He obviously wasn't sure but it wasn't his way - to yell "for

human rights", to convince someone from tribunes. Neverovsky

preferred to do everything by himself and for himself. And he

is gone silently too - despite the accompaniment of unnecessary

and ridiculous words. A well-known priest above the open tomb

tried to argue against his enemies from the Russian Orthodox

Church, another man said that "Dima has completely executed his

mission" (what the hell last mission is at the age of twenty

seven?), somebody else right near the coffin wished to Tatyana

Kotlyar "happiness and health"...

There were few journalists, and no cameras at all. The leaders

of the Radical Party of which Neverovsky was a member, invited

the people from the NTV to come to the funeral, but they

refused - "Don't you see what is happening in our company?".

Though they showed the trial of Neverovsky earlier and demanded

freedom to him.

Alternative life

The day of death of Dmitry Neverovsky, the State Duma adopted

the law on deferments for schoolboys. The day of the funeral in

Obninsk, as well as everywhere in Russia, military

commissariats and militiamen were catching the "evadors" from

the army - like in other days of the spring draft. Therefore

some of guys of military age came to say last goodbye to Dmitry

not from their homes and they aren't going to return to their

parents in the near future. They prefer to hide, to escape, to

get references from their nuclear institutes - but nobody from

my interlocutors wanted to follow the path of the law and the

lawlessness which is connected with the law:

"It's dangerous to ask for the alernative service today".

However, they say that at least two persons from Obninsk will

try this year to prove their convictions to the military

commissariat; that's not bad. Owing to Neverovsky, for them and

for the others - who are still frightened of prospect of trials

and prisons or who simply don't think about "boots" and the

choice connected with them - it will be...

No, of course, it won't be any easier for them: the judges like

military commissars much more. But in any case, the guys won't

be alone: Dima sure won't leave them.

"Guys, together we may try to stop this madness - if only there

is a lot of us. Refuse to become "cannon-fodder", do not go

humbly to the barracks to be killed or - what is even worse -

to become killers".

(From the letter of Dmitry Neverovsky, prisoner of the

investigatory isolation ward I3-37/1, Kaluga, December 30,

1999)