Igor Pomeranzev
THE RIGHT TO READ
Rarely do Western readers have the opportunity to glimpse Soviet
dissident life in parts of the Soviet Union other than Moscow, Leningrad, or
Siberia. Igor Pomeranzev, a young Soviet Jewish writer and poet, presents a
different andfresh perspective on 'Jorbidden" dissident activity, in this poignant
narrative
oj
theformative influence ofliterature on his life while growing up in a
provincial town in Ukraine and later while living in Kiev. In
1976,
Igor
Pomeranzev was arrested for possessing certain questionable books and threat–
ened with a twelve-year sentence. After this arrest he became an outspoken
supporter of imprisonedJewish and Ukrainian dissidents,
marry
oj
whom were
members of the Ukrainian Helsinki Watchgroup. In October
1978,
to avoid
imprisonment he emigrated with his wife and six-month-old son. He now lives
in London and works for the
BBG
Russian Service. Pomeranzev is a frequent
contributor to
Syntaxis,
a journal edited by Andrei Sinyavsky in Paris. He
also writes for
Survey
and various emigre Russian, Jewish, and Ukrainian
journals.
Translator's note
The summers are hot in Kiev. I kept putting off my vacation till
the end of August. The longer you wait for your meeting with the
sea, the more gratefully it welcomes you. Besides, I had to wait until
my cousin vacated her seaside cottage in Odessa and returned with
her family to Moscow, leaving her keys with our mutual friends in
Odessa. I arrived at the shore on the eve of the "velvet season." I did
not want to lose a minute. Directly from the station I set off for the
keys and made my way to the cottage. I did not unpack my suitcase.
I hurriedly found my swimming trunks and towel, and ran down to
the beach. I swam for a long time. I swam the breast stroke, the
crawl, the backstroke. I rested for awhile on the breakwater. Then I
swam to the buoy. Pressing my face against the rusty wet metal of
the buoy and feeling the coiled metal line underneath with my foot, I
Translated by Marta Zahaykevich .
