Defections Ussr

At first glance it looks like any red-blooded, 20-year-old American male's room. There's a stereo system complete with compact disc, a 10-speed bike at the foot of the bed, football ticket stubs taped to the mirror. But, then there's also that autographed photo of Ronald Reagan, a framed copy of the Declaration of Independence, blown-up news clippings about the room's occupant, and a large American flag draped above the bed.

Arsen Djavadian came to the United States with a rug, a swimsuit and an eye out for the KGB. It was his desire to live here and compete as a diver on the U.S. Olympic team. But the rug, politically speaking, has been pulled from under him. He is drowning in red tape, and Djavadian (pronounced Ja-VAD-ee-an) cannot understand why everything is so complicated. In a best-case scenario--barring an act of Congress--he will not be able to dive for the U.S.

In yet another instance of glasnost in the dance world, Natalia Makarova will become the first Soviet dancer-defector to return to the Soviet Union. Mikhail Baryshnikov may be next. Makarova will perform with the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad on Thursday and again on Feb. 1, according to her agent in London. Baryshnikov will take his American Ballet Theatre to the Soviet Union in November, according to a source close to the dancer.

Highly rated Pavel Bure has left the Soviet Union and will play for the Vancouver Canucks this season, Le Journal de Montreal reported. The newspaper said Bure, 20, has been missing in Moscow since Sept. 5. It said Bure, his younger brother and his father were staying at the home of his agent in Manhattan Beach. Bure, a left wing, was left off the Soviet team for the Canada Cup because he refused to commit to a three-year contract with the Red Army club.

The U.S. Helsinki Commission on human rights Thursday charged the Reagan Administration with violating the law in the case of a Soviet sailor who sought asylum in New Orleans but was forced to return to the Soviet Union despite congressional and public protests.

Turkish authorities were questioning a Soviet soldier who crossed into Turkey and asked for political asylum, the semiofficial Anatolia News Agency reported Monday. Emrullah Zeybek, the governor of the eastern Erzurum province, told Anatolia that the Soviet private was picked up by police after apparently arriving on a train. He did not give the soldier's name or say when he was picked up.

A Soviet seaman who refused to rejoin his fishing vessel last week has sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Liberia, spokesmen for the vessel said Monday. The trawler Olanga berthed in Monrovia last week to unload a cargo of fish and left Saturday without its second engineer, the spokesmen said. U.S. Embassy officials declined to comment.

Several thousand Soviet Communist Party and KGB members have crossed the Soviet border into northern China asking for political asylum, two Japanese newspapers reported Wednesday. China's Communist Party leaders have decided to accept the defectors and provide them with support but not to publicize the matter, according to the reports in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun and Sankei Shimbun, two national dailies.

Expressing the Western world's relief that Mikhail S. Gorbachev has returned to power, British Prime Minister John Major said after meeting with the Soviet president Sunday that failure of the hard-liners' coup was proof of what Gorbachev has accomplished. The first foreign leader to meet with Gorbachev since the Aug. 19 putsch, Major also promised that the West will help avert famine in the Soviet Union this winter and declared unabashed support for Baltic independence.

A former Soviet double agent who defected six years ago said Thursday that the KGB has abandoned round-the-clock surveillance of his family in Moscow, raising his hopes for a reunion. "It may be just a first sign that they are rethinking their attitude," Oleg Gordievsky said. Gordievsky, 53, was KGB station chief in London when he began working for British intelligence in the early 1970s. He defected in 1985 when his superiors became suspicious.

The passengers of the Soviet ship were torn Thursday between the Golden Gate Bridge and Mikhail S. Gorbachev. Should they watch the spectacular view as they steamed into San Francisco Bay? Or should they listen to the Soviet president's news conference, broadcast live on American radio hours after he survived an attempted coup.

A Soviet research vessel left Seattle for San Francisco late Monday night minus as many as six passengers and crew members who were apparently unwilling to return to their troubled Soviet homeland. Dan P. Danilov, a Seattle immigration attorney representing two crewman and one passenger from the ship Academic Shirshov, said he has been in contact with three other passengers who had also indicated a desire to seek asylum or extend their visas in the United States.

Four years ago, Irek Mukhamedov was the much-anticipated new star whose dynamic leaps and bold stage presence captivated audiences during the Bolshoi Ballet's U.S. tour. Hurling his muscular body through seemingly impossible tricks with boyish eagerness, the darkly handsome dancer was the natural heir to the long line of bravura Bolshoi men.

A Senate staff study of Soviet and East Bloc defections to the United States predicts that "a noticeable increase" will occur within the next few years, ironically because of internal reforms being pushed by Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The study by the Senate Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations--to be released at a hearing today--declares that "following periods of internal reform, defections increase rather than decrease for a period of time . . .

Soviet officials charged Friday that a former diplomat and his family who disappeared from the Soviet Embassy in Morocco five years ago are apparently being held in the United States "by force, against their will," despite their desire to return to their native country. Evgeni Kutovoy, a counselor at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, accused U.S.

After nine days of deliberations, jurors in San Fernando Superior Courton on Monday recommended that a Soviet army deserter die in the gas chamber for killing the Estonian activist who gave him shelter in her North Hollywood home. Tauno Waidla, 23, showed no emotion as the court clerk read the jury's decision.

You can go home again. Just don't expect to do so quietly if you are one of the world's more prominent musicians, returning to the Soviet Union after more than a quarter-century in self-imposed exile. When Vladimir Ashkenazy arrived in Moscow last year for two concerts, he came with his own orchestra and a small media army.