Ben Stewart - Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg

1st November

Just had a 20 minute phone call with Joe + Nina. It was really really lovely. So good to talk to them and hopefully reassured Joe of my well being. Nina pretty damn upset with Greenpeace and how they got it ‘so’ wrong. I tried to tell Nina that I always knew a prison sentence was coming my way but she is still very angry with them. She has done loads of really good interviews as well. Major radio + news etc. So proud of her. So proud. Things could get a bit ugly if I get a longer jail term here. I think Nina will start demanding a new lawyer + possibly criticise Greenpeace, which would be disastrous on an open forum. God I hope it’s over soon for that sake alone.

2nd November

Really strong dream last night. Boris was obviously making noise and rattling the steel bunk with the light on. I was confused and convinced it was Nina coming into our bedroom to go to sleep. Assuredly to do with the phone call and the sudden contact made with back home. It was really upsetting though, because for one second I felt so comfy and back at home in bed. Reality was a hard bite.

I keep thrashing Yuri at chess. It’s getting a bit embarrassing.

4th November

Boris’ snoring is getting really bad. Started dreaming of toe clip electrodes that would be linked to a decibel meter and apply an equal and appropriate level of electric shock compared with the sound level and resonance of the snoring.

The Investigative Committee is trying to split the Arctic 30.

If they can get some of the activists to give evidence saying who took an active role in the protest at the rig, they can focus the charges on just a few of them. It’s a strategy that could see some of them go free but ensure the rest are jailed for many years. And if the IC can get the thirty to turn on each other they’ll secure a propaganda triumph for the Kremlin, especially if one of the turncoats is from the famous Litvinov dynasty.

Three days after being freed from the punishment cell, Dima is shaken awake by a guard.

‘You, get up, you have a meeting.’

‘I do?’

‘Your lawyer’s here.’

Dima jumps to the ground, then he’s marched down the hall with the guard following just behind him. ‘Right left right left right left…’ They turn a corner and there, coming towards him, are the two guys from the FSB. The competent authorities . The fist clenches in Dima’s stomach. Gerbil breaks into a grin.

‘Hey, that’s Litvinov isn’t it?’

‘It is, it is,’ says his friend with the helmet haircut. ‘It’s our old friend Litvinov.’

‘Ah, but where’s he going? That’s the question.’

‘He’s going to see his lawyer.’

‘Oh is he?’

‘He is, he is. He’s got a meeting.’

‘Oooh, a meeting. Sounds important.’

‘But I think we should have a little chat with him first, don’t you?’

‘Yes, yes. I think we should. I think the lawyer’s going to have to wait a while.’

The guard tugs the back of Dima’s shirt, pulling him to a halt. Helmet-hair opens a door and holds out an arm. Dima looks at each of the men in turn then nods and steps through the open door. He’s in a small meeting room with a row of chairs facing a single seat across a table, on which sits a bowl of biscuits. It’s like the scene of a job interview with five people on the panel. The competent authorities follow him in and shut the door.

Helmet-hair sits down and invites Dima to take the seat opposite him. Gerbil doesn’t take a seat, instead he lowers his tiny, bony little arse onto the edge of the table then shuffles along, making himself more comfortable before leaning down and exploding in Dima’s face.

‘You fucking bitch! You know how many years you’re going to be here? You think you’re going to get out after two months? Oh my God , you’re going to be here for years! You understand that, right? Did you like the punishment cell? Oh, you didn’t? What, you thought because you’re a Litvinov that we can’t just make you disappear? Well you know what, you’re going to be spending a lot of time in that cell, my friend. What have you got to say to that?’

Dima flinches in the face of Gerbil’s onslaught, the knot in his stomach is as tight as it’s ever been, it’s generating a powerful anxious energy that’s running down his legs and up his spine, sucking the breath from his lungs and making his hands shake.

Helmet-hair picks a biscuit from the bowl and slides it between his thick lips, his eyes resting grimly on Dima’s face. Silence. Crumbs are dropping from his mouth and falling into the creases in his shirt. He swallows and reaches for another biscuit, bites a chunk out of it and with his mouth full he says, ‘You’re in our hands now, arsehole. Oh, you thought you had to commit a crime to go to the kartser ? Buddy, you’ll be going to that place any time we want you there. So look, bitch, now’s when you start telling us what happened at that platform. No protocol, just you, us and the truth. And you’d better start telling us fucking soon.’

Dima coughs into his hand and takes a breath. ‘I’m under strictest orders from my lawyer and—’

Gerbil screws up his face and slaps the air in front of him. ‘I’m just so disgusted by this man, I’ve got no time for this bullshit. He had his chance but he just sealed his fate.’ He stands up and opens the door. The guard is still standing outside. ‘Get him out of here.’

Helmet-hair pushes the rest of the biscuit between his lips, slaps his hands together, stands up and walks out. Dima gulps. He stares at the empty chairs in front of him then looks up at the guard, who gives a long low whistle.

‘Boy, they don’t like you, do they?’

Dima is taken back to his cell. He lies on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, going over what just happened. He’s still shaken. The fist is like a rock in his belly. They’re out to get me, he thinks. There’s no doubt about it, not now. This is what they did to Dad.

Nearly half a century has passed since Pavel Litvinov sat down in Red Square in the certain knowledge that he would be punished with the full force of the Soviet state. But right now Dima’s thinking of an episode that happened a year before that. The time when his father wrote a letter to the editor of Izvestia, the leading Soviet state-controlled newspaper.

I consider it my duty to bring the following to the notice of public opinion. On 26 September 1967 I was summoned to the Committee of State Security to be interviewed by an official of the Committee named Gostev. During our talk another KGB official was present but did not give his name. Immediately the conversation was over, I wrote it down from memory, because I was convinced that it graphically revealed tendencies which should be given publicity and which cannot but cause alarm to progressive public opinion both in our country and throughout the world… I protest against behaviour of this sort on the part of the state security organs, behaviour which amounts to unconcealed blackmail. I ask you to publish this letter, so that in case I am arrested, public opinion will be informed about the circumstances leading up to this event.

In the letter Pavel gave his verbatim account of the interrogation, explaining how the KGB agent Gostev warned him not to report details of a recent dissident trial; how the officer accused the dissident of ‘hooliganism’ despite the fact that the man had merely read out a poem in Mayakovsky Square; how Pavel would himself face trial unless he stopped his political activism.

‘Pavel Mikhailovich, we don’t intend to have a discussion with you,’ Gostev had said. ‘We are simply warning you. Just imagine if the whole world were to learn that the grandson of the great diplomat Litvinov is engaged in conduct of this sort. Why, it would be a blot on his memory.’