Recently I have met an intellectual of the Soviet rigid mainstream in Tbilisi. During the traditional Georgian hospitality, I suggested a toast among the other ones to Dato Turashvili whose literary acclaim I have always been admiring. My interlocutor didn’t seem to be happy with my toast, just, on the contrary, he got upset and smiled, meanwhile, he put the glass of wine on the table without drinking. Certainly, he tried to do this quite unnoticeably, but it caught my eye. Later on, in the district of Turkish bathhouse, during the evening walk, I tried to figure out the reason for this strange behavior.
“It’s an awful story, are you sure you want to know?” asked my interlocutor for the last time and started speaking in my positive response. “In contrast to the accepted opinion in the Soviet Union period, there was not only sex but also terrorism, hijacking, hostage-taking and other phenomena uniting the world. There was a total of 57 trials of hijacking in USSR within the period of time 1954-1989”.
“What did it start with…?”
“The airplane arriving from Tbilisi airport to Batumi was hijacked on November 18th, 1983, by a group of 7 terrorists. They were encouraged by the success of father and son Brazinskas having hijacked the plane of the same flight in 1970. The Brazinskas managed to hijack the airplane to Turkey and get to the USA avoiding the extradition to the Soviet Union. The terrorists of Jeans Generation couldn’t even imagine their hero Brazinskas the Great would be killed freely by his son 30 years later, in 2002, in the USA. Young men in jeans used to get together in their friend’s apartment where they were learning to shoot and were watching the educational film “Nabat” on airplane hijacking. Those fellows were dignitaries of science and art – doctors, actors, and painters… On the very day, on November 18th, two of them, the 19-year old student of the Academy of Fine Arts, Tinati Patviashvili, and the actor Guerman Kobakhidzeh pretended to get married and left for Batumi for a wedding travel. In fact, they transferred weapon into the airplane on the pretext of their wedding travel. According to their calculation, when the airplane was the closest to the Turkish border, they started at once killing suspicious passengers inasmuch as they considered them to be so, all those who could be policemen. Actually, they had nothing to do with the police. Taking hostage the flight attendant, the airplane returns to Tbilisi thanks to the efforts of navigator Vladimir Gasoyan, where the Alfa group of the State Security Committee renders the group of terrorists harmless in 8 minutes without any victim. Totally, there were 7 victims and 12 injured”.
“What about the public reaction?”
“It was surprisingly different. To the surprise of the authorities, the hijackers were acclaimed in those days in Tbilisi. They were called brave fellows rebelling against the Soviet regime. Letters with amnesty claims were written to the Central Committee on behalf of intellectuals. People were threatening to rise in revolt. Even a signature collection was organized”.
At this moment my interlocutor got upset and lighted a cigarette.
“I joined the signature collection campaign as an outstanding representative of intellectuals of those days. It seemed to me they were bright–minded fellows and their act was the explosion of accumulated protest. Nevertheless, when those rumors were spread to the dangerous extent, on Shevardnadze’s order, a documentary about those incidents and the further procedure was filmed and broadcast. Several extracts of the “Jeans” statements in the court were broadcast on TV. The whole Tbilisi was shocked by facing the reality. It became obvious in the court that no romanticism existed from the very beginning. They could simply leave USSR with a tourist visa, but they wanted to be glorified. They didn’t want the West, they wanted to be dissidents, political refugees, heroes in the West… Those people sacrificed themselves and others on the way of their glory. After the film, I met one of the victims’ relatives. It was an awful experience. People were full of sorrow. I immediately called the organizer of the signature collection and took my signature back. The trial was fair. There were no heroes, they were criminals and must have been punished. On the whole, this case was very politicized. The West tried to won all the possible dividends trying to demonstrate how bad it was in the Soviet Union that people escaped at the expense of their lives. Turashvili’s book is about those incidents and their glorification is from that part. Even after the abolition of URRS, the Soviet Union ghost doesn’t let the West calm to the extent, that they are ready to glorify the terrorism. And now, when I have got old, I understand that any terrorism has a romantic story left behind, but it doesn’t justify the innocent blood”.
“Punishments…”
“All of them were sentenced to death except Tinati. The girl was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment. However, 8 years later, when the Soviet Union was abolished and the anti-sovietism had reached its apogee, the president Gamsakhurdia granted an amnesty to her”.
“You said there were more than 7 victims. You might not remember the exact number”.
“Of course I remember, it’s impossible to forget. I feel myself to be part of this bloodshed because of my stupid signature. There were 7 victims but few people know that Tinati was pregnant and the unborn child was also sacrificed because of his mother’s aspiration and jeans-related dreams… So, more than 7 victims. And do you know what is the awful thing…?”
“What?”
“The death sentence was executed in the October of 1984, and in a short while, the convicts’ parents got a letter from the Ministry of Justice, with the notification that 67 coins were retained from their salaries. It was the price of the bullet the execution was carried out with. That letter was a part of the Soviet Union jurisdiction. I don’t say my interlocutor’s name at his request….
NAREK MALYAN
