 Source: HRO.org (info) Vitaly Pomazov has passed away. We remember a man who was a journalist, historian, political prisoner in the Soviet era, and chair of the Serpukhov Memorial society. Vitaly Vasilievich Pomazov was born in 1946 in the town of Pyr in the Balakhninsky district of Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) region. He graduated from the automotive training college and secondary school with a silver medal. Thereafter he enrolled at Gorky State University (now the State University of Nizhny Novgorod) and studied in the history faculty. In 1968 he was expelled from the university for writing and distributing a sociological work The State and Socialism and sent to serve in a manual-work army battalion, serving in Bolshevo and Almaty. On 22 October 1970, he was arrested by the Gorky KGB and charged with anti-Soviet activities. On 2 February 1971, Gorky regional court sentenced him to four years in a corrective labour camp under the political Article 70 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (the judicial chamber of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR changed the sentence to a term of 1.5 years under Article 190). Video on the life of Vitaly Pomazov On 22 April 1972, his sentence ended and he was released from the penal colony in Sherstki, Gorky region. From 1972 to 1987 he was involved in the human rights movement, in the Chronicle of Current Events, the Foundation for the Assistance of Political Prisoners and in the distribution of samizdat publications. From 1979 to 1983, he was the editor of the samizdat magazines Protalina and A stroll through the St Bartholemew's Day Massacre.  In 1989, he became a member of the board of the national Memorial society. In 1989, he returned to his studies at the history faculty of the State University of Nizhny Novgorod by correspondence, graduating with distinction in 1991. He lived in Serpukhov in the Moscow region and from 1990 to 2011 he was editor of the newspaper Sovet and penned memoirs and four collections of poetry. He was chair of the Serpukhov branch of Memorial and directed the literary club. He taught at the International Academy of Business and Administration in Protvino. – Pomazov V.V. Thanking fate: Memoirs of a dissident in Nizhny Novgorod in the early 1970s: Part One Part Two Part Three Photo: Vitaly Pomazov, 1968
Translated by Helen Corbett
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