The fate of Valentin Zasimov is connected with the much more famous story of another Soviet defector - Viktor Belenko.
On September 6, 1976, 17 days before Zasimov's escape, he flew in his MiG-25 from the USSR to Japan.
Subsequently, the United States granted Belenko political asylum, and the Americans got a plane full of secret equipment.
The betrayal of a military pilot was painfully perceived by the leadership of the Soviet Union.
Therefore, when, two weeks later, retired lieutenant Zasimov single-handedly hijacked a civilian corn plant and flew to Iran, the USSR put unprecedented pressure on the republic's authorities.
If Zasimov was not extradited, Soviet leaders threatened to start supplying weapons to the local opposition, as well as to Kurdish and Azerbaijani separatists, and even hinted at the possibility of an open military conflict.
In addition, according to the declassified archives of the Ukrainian KGB, a special operation was carried out directly because of the escape of Zasimov, as a result of which a 31-year-old Iranian citizen was detained in Kiev on September 28, 1976 for illegal currency transactions. He was trained at the Kommunarsky Metallurgical Plant in Alchevsk, together with two compatriots arrived in Kiev on September 26 as a tourist and decided to purchase currency through an intermediary. In the certificate of the head of the KGB of the Ukrainian USSR, Vitaly Fedorchuk, prepared in the name of the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Volodymyr Shcherbytsky, it was directly noted that "KGB measures" were carried out "with the aim of exerting pressure on the Iranian authorities to extradite a Soviet citizen."
Famous human rights activists, including academician Andrei Sakharov, sent letters in support of Zasimov, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees personally asked the Iranian authorities to provide the pilot with political asylum and not extradite him.
However, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi chose not to aggravate the situation, and Zasimov was returned to the USSR.
Moreover, unlike Belenko, the Soviet lieutenant of the reserve for foreigners did not represent any interest.
In the USSR, the pilot was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
However, information about his further fate has so far been extremely sketchy and consisted mainly of short mentions of other political prisoners with whom Zasimov was in the camp.
Even his surname in various historical materials, as a rule, is spelled differently - Zosimov.
RT managed to find out the true story of the life and failed escape of Valentin Zasimov from his youngest son Alexander.
Valentin Zasimov in 1957, photo from the graduation album of secondary school No. 59 in Baku
© Photo from the personal archive of Alexander Zasimov
From school to reserve
- Alexander, very little is known about your father. Tell us
about his early years
,
where he was born.
- Father was born on October 6, 1939.
I don't know the exact place of birth, but he spent his childhood on Sakhalin.
I grew up in a military family, my grandfather was an artilleryman.
She and her grandmother were from Baku, and it is quite possible that my father was born there too, and then the family left for the Far East.
After the grandfather completed the service, the family returned to Azerbaijan, where the father graduated from school.
- As far as is known, he decided to follow in his father's footsteps and make a military career, but for some reason it did not work out.
- After school, he entered the Bataysk Flight Military School - then it was so called.
He learned to be a fighter pilot, but never started flying combat aircraft.
- Why
?
- In 1960, Khrushchev massively reduced the Soviet army by more than 1 million people.
And my father immediately after graduation fell under this reduction, becoming a reserve lieutenant.
- How did this turn of fate affect him
?
- I think in the most dramatic way.
It seems to me that this is something that somehow broke down ideologically and subsequently, over the years, led to the decision that he made.
He was very disappointed, because he dreamed of a career in the army, to continue the military dynasty.
As a result, he returned to Baku, and either could not find a job there, or was sent for distribution, but ended up in the small Azerbaijani town of Yevlakh.
He worked in civil aviation, flew the An-2, because after the military school he was allowed without retraining.
My father had already married at that time, in 1962 my older brother was born.
Then my parents moved to Lviv, where I was born in 1971.
-
Did he fly in Lviv too
?
- Yes, he flew the An-2 all the time.
In addition to passenger and cargo flights, he was also involved in spraying fields.
That is, he left for the point for a while.
I remember that they paid very well for this, I could earn 1000 rubles for such a trip, so financially everything was fine.
- In addition to dissatisfaction with the dismissal from the army, did he have any complaints about the authorities, Soviet reality
?
- I think he was generally skeptical of the Soviet way of life.
I still don't know where he got such views that everything in the USSR is not as good as they say on TV.
Maybe he was listening to Voice of America *, maybe influenced by communication with someone.
Valentin Zasimov in his youth
© Photo from the personal archive of Alexander Zasimov
- When did he get the idea of running away from the country
?
- It is hard to say.
He had one episode in Lvov, because of which they left there back to Azerbaijan.
My father was the commander of the An-2, but he also had a co-pilot.
And so, when he was piloting the plane, they touched the wires.
As a result, my father had to answer, he was demoted to co-pilot.
He was very upset by this story.
Dad was very ambitious and I think this incident also influenced him a lot.
- What other character traits distinguished your father
?
- He was always for the truth.
Even when he was already in the Perm-36 camp, the staff complained to his mother that it was very difficult with him: he wanted everything to be there as it should be, according to the standards.
That is, if a person needs to be delivered to the dentist within 36 hours, he demanded that this be done.
If food is of a certain quality, then it should be like that.
He constantly wrote numerous complaints to Moscow on all such cases.
"Along the rows of corn ..."
- So, escape to Iran.
Did your mom know about him
?
- As far as I know, there were conversations about this in the family, maybe even a few months before its implementation.
He said that he would fly away, because he did not want to live here, and then he would take us to him.
- And how did he plan to do it
?
- Then, as far as I know, there was a family reunification program.
That is, if a person was given political asylum there, then family members were released to him.
I don't know if it really was, but he definitely planned to pick us up later.
An-2 aircraft, adapted for processing fields, on which Valentin Zasimov flew
© Photo from the personal archive of Alexander Zasimov
- He flew away on September 23, 1976. Was this date pre-selected or was it just a convenient opportunity
?
- Rather the second, this is how the circumstances developed.
He had another flight, he dropped all the passengers and, left alone, flew to Iran.
It is quite possible that this could have happened earlier, but maybe then there were some passengers who, for example, had to be transported somewhere further from the border, but he did not want to put anyone at risk and was looking for the right moment.
- Among the few information about your father's escape there is information about the landing site in Iran - somewhere in the area of the city of Ahar. If you look at the map, then this small settlement is very far from the Soviet border and the city of Lankaran, which, as I understand it, was the end point of his working trip. It turns out that over the territory of Iran itself, your father, having, as I understand it, no maps, flew long enough.
- I do not think that he flew purposefully to the area of this city, rather, he simply ran out of fuel and sat down where he could.
From the words of my father, I know that he landed right in a corn field, but he sat down in such field conditions all his life, and this was not a problem for him.
I had a conversation with one of his friends, and he explained that my father had built the route in such a way that he could cross the USSR border over the sea and at a very low altitude.
That is, it turns out that he first flew along the coastline to the south.
Apparently, this way it was easier to cross the border from the point of view of detection by air defense forces.
And only then, in the airspace of Iran, he turned back to land and flew deep into Iran as long as he could.
Valentin Zasimov (left) with colleagues
© Photo from the personal archive of Alexander Zasimov
- Was Iran the ultimate goal or just served as an intermediate point for the further journey to the West
?
- Of course, he did not plan to stay there.
His ultimate goal was to get to America, hoping, already being in Iran, to ask for political asylum in the United States.
-
Did he tell you what happened to him after landing
?
- My father recalled that he had been waiting for people at the landing site for a very long time.
He thought that it would be like in the USSR: the appropriate authorities with flashing lights would immediately come to him as an offender, and so on.
And there it was not.
In the end, of course, they still came to him.
- What things did he have with him?
Still, I ran to one end.
- He was in his flight uniform - that's all.
They even made him a little shopping in Iran so that there were at least some everyday things: they bought civilian clothes, shoes.
Father, of course, was guarded, but it was some kind of room, not a prison, and he lived there quite normally for a month.
- And while he was waiting for his fate there, a real geopolitical thriller unfolded around his escape. The USSR
demanded that the Shah return the pilot, and the world community, our famous dissidents, including Academician Sakharov, wrote appeals in his defense.
Another well-known Soviet defector, Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva, also stood up for him.
- Of course, he did not know any of this and did not even guess what passions flared up around his escape.
Extradition to the USSR and court at the House of Culture
- A month later
under pressure from the USSR, the
Shah of Iran still denied asylum to Valentin Zasimov and gave him up.
Did your father tell you how it happened
?
- Yes, that day they blindfolded him, put him in a car and drove him somewhere for a very long time.
Then the car was stopped.
And without removing the bandage, he was transplanted into another car.
Already in the second car, one of the people nearby sneezed and then, apparently explaining, uttered the word "flu".
As my father told me, at that moment he immediately realized that he had been given back.
Valentin Zasimov with his wife and eldest son
© Photo from the personal archive of Alexander Zasimov
- That is, he was not sent to Moscow, but simply taken to the border with Azerbaijan, and there he was transferred to the USSR
?
- Yes, as I understand it, it was.
He was eventually taken to Baku, where the trial took place.
The process was conducted by the Supreme Court of the Azerbaijan SSR, and it took place in the House of Culture named after A.
Dzerzhinsky, which belonged to the KGB, is in the very center of the city.
I also remember how we came to him for short-term meetings at the KGB of Azerbaijan, where he was detained.
But what he said there, how these meetings were held, I, of course, no longer remember, I was then only five years old.
- The court, most likely, was closed
?
- Before our meeting with you, I was sure of this, but just to refresh some moments in my memory, I talked to my mother, and she said that the court was open, there were present and speeches of my father's former colleagues, including The pilots came to Lvov, and they all gave him a very flattering description.
Mom said that the judge even joked: such reviews from colleagues are excellent, the family is exemplary, as if you were given a business trip to the Kremlin, and not judged, they say, what else did you need in life.
- Is it known what your father said at the trial
?
- I asked my mother, but she doesn't remember much.
She only said that he had such a phrase: "I lost faith in Soviet reality."
- Once again I refer to meager sources, according to which he was given 12 years. At that time, it was quite humane, because for "treason" he was threatened with execution.
- Yes.
If you take my mother and father, they feared that there would be a death sentence.
My father was mentally ready for this.
As I understand it, his article was re-qualified, and as a result, the maximum punishment for it was 15 years in prison.
This is exactly the time the prosecutor asked for.
Well, they gave in the end even less.
What served as a mitigating circumstance, I do not know for sure.
Perhaps a good biography and flattering reviews, perhaps the biography of his grandfather, who heroically died in the Civil War in the fight against whites in the Krasnodar Territory - this could also be taken into account.
- According to some reports, the non-application of capital punishment to your father was one of the conditions of the Iranian authorities, which they set, agreeing to extradite him.
- I can't say anything about this.
Quite possible.
Even if there were such agreements, then the father or we, of course, did not know anything about them.
I know that after the verdict he wrote letters to Moscow, to high authorities, my mother also wrote to the Prosecutor General of the USSR, Roman Rudenko.
I don’t know what was in them, but, as I understand it, it didn’t work.
-
Do you remember something about the investigation
?
- I remember well the search at our house.
Everything was like in a movie: cabinets open, everything falls out from there - everything looks, scrolls, reads.
At the same time, everything was quite calm.
- How did the fact that your father was convicted affect the fate of your family
?
In those days, this was a serious stigma.
- Father's brother was a very talented person.
Although he was two years younger, they even studied in the same class at school - he was so capable.
By the time his father fled, he was a school director either in Moscow or in Istra, but because of this he was fired from his job, and he was then very much offended by him.
They did not communicate for a long time, although after many years they nevertheless met in Moscow.
As for me, my brother and my mother, this in principle did not affect us in any way.
- What did you live on
after being imprisoned
?
- Mom worked.
I remember she was a postman, but there were also unofficial earnings.
Baku is a city where you could always find additional income at that time.
So (mom -
RT
) raised my brother and me normally.
- In early September 1976, Viktor Belenko fled to Japan in the newest MiG-25 from the USSR. Perhaps it was after this incident that the Soviet authorities so persistently sought the extradition of Valentin Zasimov. At the same time, Belenko was immediately granted asylum in the United States, where he still lives. Did your father know about this incident
?
- Yes, he knew about it for sure.
I do not even exclude the possibility that I could have learned about this escape immediately after what happened, listening to the Voice of America, and even somehow be inspired by it.
In any case, there were always conversations about Belenko in the family, even when we later came to my father's camp for long visits, that is, for three days.
"He was not a dissident"
- Your father, along with other dissidents, defectors, was in the Perm camps, where political prisoners were taken. In one of them, the so-called "Perm-36" camp, now even a museum has been opened, although, alas, they do not know anything about Zasimov's fate. Did you often visit him in the colony
?
- Yes, a total of six to eight times.
We went with the whole family - mom, me and brother.
I still remember the addresses: Perm Region, Chusovskoy District, the villages of Polovinka (there was camp 37) and Kuchino (where my father was in camp 36).
Now, as far as I know, there is a museum there.
I remember that when my father was launched, I was always the very first to run, hung on my neck, and then the rest came up.
Protocol of the search of Valentin Zasimov's house, carried out five days after his escape to Iran
© Photo from the personal archive of Alexander Zasimov
- He asked to bring him something
?
- Yes, he asked his mother to bring chicken and turkey.
- Was that really what he missed in prison
?
- No, these are such code words.
Turkey is Indian tea and chicken is cigarettes.
Although it was quite allowed to bring it there, for some reason he called them that.
Nevertheless, all the cigarettes were pulled out of the packs and cracked so that there was nothing there.
I don't remember whether the filter was broken or not, and during the meeting there was a large plate with these broken cigarettes, he took them and smoked them.
I don’t remember how, perhaps, with the mouthpiece.
- From the extremely scant information of dissidents about your father's stay in the camp, it is known that he several times took part in some kind of collective protest actions and strikes. In addition, as I understand it, the KGB officers also exerted some pressure on him there, because I found a mention of his letter to the wife of dissident Viktor Nekipelov, where he asks her not to send him any more money from the dissident Fund for Assistance to Political Prisoners. And then he
explained this refusal to his fellow
prisoners by the
fact that KGB officers had put pressure on him. Do you know something about how he behaved in the camp, what happened to him
?
Maybe he was telling something
?
- No, I have not heard about this before, and I myself have very vague memories of this.
When we came to my father in one of the Perm camps for a long meeting, there was no talk about this, at least in my presence, and I did not hear any complaints about something.
But, by the way, they sent us postcards and even parcels from Italy.
Mom said that once the postman brought us some expensive imported sweets, which we began to eat right away.
The letter had a request to indicate the size of the children's clothes so that they could send us clothes.
But my mother was very scared, she was afraid that they could be held accountable for this.
She did not answer the letter, she wrote a refusal to parcels at the post office, and the postcards came.
One survived somewhere, but even texting my mother was scary.
- Studying the scanty materials
about Zasimov, it seemed to me that although he was considered a political prisoner, he was not particularly close to other dissident prisoners.
They hardly mention him, and there is no information about your father in the archives of our leading human rights organizations.
Was he really aloof from them
?
- Yes, of course, he was not a dissident in the generally accepted sense of the word, he did not fight the authorities, after all, he was a pilot, and dissidents were mostly people from a completely different, intelligentsia environment, with a different education.
As far as I know, he did not maintain any special connections with any of them.
- Did he regret his deed in prison or outside, then
?
- He never regretted.
I think he was not thrilled with how it turned out, but I never heard or noticed regrets.
Liberation and further destiny
- At the moment, nothing is known for certain about the fate of your father. His term ended in October 1988, and he was reportedly still in prison at the end of October 1985. And then there is a complete information vacuum, and no one anywhere can say anything about his fate.
- Father was released on October 23, 1985, he served exactly nine years.
Why I didn’t sit out the remaining three years, I don’t know for sure.
Perhaps as a result of parole or something else - neither I nor my mother can remember.
When he was released, they were already divorced from their mother.
From her words, I understood that the reason was that he, being in prison, did not really appreciate her attitude towards him.
- And she didn’t have any resentment for this act that it all happened
?
Did
she really believe that he would pick you up after he escaped
?
— Да. Хотя она не была за, но и не отговаривала его от побега. Возможно, она тогда не понимала масштаба всего того, что могло произойти, и не до конца верила в серьёзность его намерений.
— Как вы узнали, что он выходит на свободу?
— Он мне позвонил. Он же приехал в Баку перед освобождением.
- Валентин Засимов на следующий день после освобождения с сыном Александром. Баку, октябрь 1985 года
- © Фото из личного архива Александра Засимова
— Как это? Он же сидел в Пермском крае.
— Прямо ко дню освобождения его доставили по этапу в Баку. И в день окончания срока его выпустили из тюрьмы КГБ с чемоданчиком. Он пришёл домой к своей маме, позвонил мне, и мы с ним встретились.
— Помните свои эмоции тогда?
— К тому моменту я уже узнал, что его освобождают, и это не было сюрпризом. Ощущения были странные, конечно. Непривычно было осознавать, что у тебя есть отец, всё-таки большую часть жизни — 9 лет из 14 — я рос без него.
— Вы сами тогда понимали уже, за что он сидел, что вообще с ним произошло?
— Как раз в том возрасте уже стал понимать. А в детстве мне рассказывали историю, что он полетел, у него закончилось горючее и не было другого варианта спасти свою жизнь, кроме как перелететь через границу. Соответственно, я так же и друзьям рассказывал, они меня тогда даже поддерживали, мол, разве им, следователям, докажешь, что у самолёта топливо закончилось.
— Какие у него тогда были мысли в голове, планы?
— Я думаю, в его возрасте у человека, который всю жизнь пролетал, уже нет никаких особо амбициозных планов. После освобождения он устроился простым слесарем газового оборудования. Естественно, после его прошлого выбор был небольшой, и пошёл туда, куда взяли. Я думаю, его устроили по знакомству.
— Не пытался вернуть вашу маму?
— Пытался. Они ходили, разговаривали, но так ничего и не вышло у них. Брат уже к тому времени перебрался в Москву, а я виделся с отцом постоянно, выходные проводил у него. Вскоре он купил себе «запорожец», мне тогда было 15 лет, и это, естественно, добавляло стимула чаще общаться с ним.
— Получается, жизнь потихоньку у него наладилась?
— Как сказать. Из тюрьмы он вышел уже сломленным, был подавлен жизнью. Его, конечно, сильно угнетало, что к тому моменту, когда он освободился, а это уже была перестройка, за такие побеги, по сути, перестали так наказывать. Он не планировал ничего и не надеялся на что-то хорошее в своей судьбе. Слесарем он проработал два года, после чего, насколько я знаю, поехал в Москву в санаторий и познакомился там с женщиной. Через некоторое время он окончательно перебрался к ней в Москву.
— Чем он занимался в столице?
— Была не очень престижная работа, насколько я помню, какая-то котельная, где он что-то делал. Перспектив никаких не видел. Мне кажется, даже политикой в то бурное время он не особо интересовался. Во всяком случае, в разговорах мы не обсуждали её и (отец. — RT) ни на какие митинги не ходил.
С этой женщиной он вскоре расстался, сошёлся с другой, более мягкой по характеру, она и ко мне хорошо относилась — я часто к отцу в гости приезжал, останавливался у них. Но прожил он недолго.
- Валентин Засимов через несколько лет после выхода на свободу
- © Фото из личного архива Александра Засимова
— Когда он умер?
— В 1995 году. Что-то с сердцем, ему было всего 55 лет. После смерти отца кремировали, я приезжал на похороны.
— После развала СССР он не пытался добиться реабилитации, как многие осуждённые за подобные преступления, которые после развала Советского Союза уже перестали считаться таковыми?
— Нет, и меня это удивляет. Видимо, не видел в этом смысла особого, так как никаких неудобств из-за судимости у него не было, никто ему дорогу не закрывал куда-то.
— А за границей хоть раз ещё побывал?
— Нет, так никуда и не ездил больше.
Волгоград вместо Баку
— Александр, расскажите немного о себе. Как сложилась ваша жизнь, почему мы с вами беседуем в Волгограде, а не в вашем родном Баку?
— После школы я пошёл в строительный техникум, стал топографом. Потом в 1990 году ушёл в армию, служил в аэрофотослужбе авиации Балтийского флота. А демобилизовался, когда моя страна — Советский Союз — уже перестала существовать. У меня из армии было направление, в котором было написано, что я направляюсь в Наримановский райвоенкомат города Баку, но обстановка в городе была уже далеко не такой, как во времена моего детства, и по настоянию мамы я отправился не домой, а в Волгоград, к нашим хорошим знакомым.
— А мама уже была там?
— Да, она меня встретила в Волгограде. Когда я демобилизовался, она уже решила для себя, что в Баку оставаться нам не стоит и надо переезжать. Мы отправились в Баку, продали нашу трёхкомнатную квартиру и окончательно перебрались в Волгоград.
— Продать её удалось по нормальной цене?
— Нет, на деньги от неё мы смогли купить в Волгограде только однокомнатную на окраине.
— Неужели за два года, пока вы были в армии, в Баку всё так изменилось?
— Да, кардинально. Была уже другая страна, другие люди. Тем более и слухи витали, что вот армян выгнали — следующими будут русские. Ещё до армии я замечал такие антирусские звоночки, надписи всякие враждебные — атмосфера в конце 1980-х в городе уже изменилась, конечно.
Я же своими глазами видел и как в Баку на привокзальной площади толпой избивали армян, и как в январе 1990 года в город заходила советская армия для подавления беспорядков.
— Как у вас сложилась жизнь в Волгограде?
— Денег на учёбу не было, надо было работать, и я пошёл в торговлю. Что-то привозили из Баку, а здесь продавали, тогда это было в новинку, в России этот челночный бизнес ещё толком не начался. Потом уже в Москву стали ездить за товаром — «Лужники», Черкизовский рынок и т. д. А с середины нулевых всё стало загибаться, прибыль стала снижаться, работал чуть ли не в ноль. Постепенно я стал выводить деньги в недвижимость, и в итоге сейчас у меня другой небольшой бизнес. Я женат, у меня двое детей. Супруга в курсе поступка отца, она очень положительно восприняла эту историю.
- Александр Засимов
- © Фото из личного архива Александра Засимова
— По Баку скучаете?
— Очень. Это самая большая ностальгия в моей жизни. Даже не по каким-то людям из детства и юности, а именно по самому городу.
— Когда там были последний раз?
— В 1995 году. Собрался как раз в этом году с семьёй туда съездить, показать им город моего детства, но из-за коронавируса пока нельзя, придётся отложить.
— Вы думали, как бы сложилась ваша жизнь, жизнь всей вашей семьи, если бы «побега Засимова» не было?
— Я думаю, конечно, всё было бы иначе. Но здесь важно отметить, что и самого побега наверняка бы не произошло, если бы отец, как и мечтал, сделал военную карьеру. Если бы не то сокращение армии, то к середине 1970-х он бы уже был майором или подполковником, имел хороший статус, зарплату, гарантированную пенсию, а вместо этого, будучи действительно хорошим пилотом, лётчиком-истребителем, он был вынужден летать на кукурузнике и опрыскивать поля. И в итоге эта копившаяся в нём внутренняя неудовлетворённость жизнью толкнула его на отчаянный шаг. И он сделал то, что сделал.
Думаю, если бы не побег, то и мама с ним бы не развелась, и жизнь моего старшего брата сложилась бы более удачно. Он рано умер, ему было всего 47 лет.
- Семейный архив семьи Засимовых
- © Фото из личного архива Александра Засимова
Что касается меня, то я бы наверняка поступил в институт, получил высшее образование — и моя жизнь сложилась бы совершенно по-другому. Но в то время в Баку куда-то поступить без денег было невозможно, и после того, как отца посадили, таких финансовых возможностей у нашей семьи, конечно, не было. Мама мне честно всё это тогда объяснила, и пришлось после восьмого класса идти в техникум. Ну, дальше нет смысла фантазировать и гадать — жизнь сложилась так, как сложилась, и я ни о чём не жалею.
* СМИ, признанное иностранным агентом по решению Министерства юстиции РФ от 05.12.2017.