Storming the Castle - How Boris Gulko Finally Won His Freedom
This is the final part of Boris Gulko’s chapter in The KGB Plays Chess (ISBN: 978-1-888690-75-0). After seven years as a refusenik, Gulko and his wife Anya decided to stop waiting and start fighting. What follows is one of the most intense stretches of the entire book.
The Bern Tournament and a Decision to Act
In winter 1985, Gulko heard on Western radio that a chess tournament called “Salute to Gulko” was planned for April 1986 in Bern, during a session of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The organizers included human rights defender Vladimir Bukovsky and two-time US champion Lev Alburt.
This gave the Gulkos something they badly needed: international visibility. And they decided to use it. The plan was extreme. Go out every single day and demonstrate on a Moscow square until the government either lets them leave or puts them in prison.
They had changed inside during seven years of refusenik life. Remember the young man who taught them that “it is not we who are chained to the wall, but the wall that is chained to us”? They had become free people. They decided to act like free people.
Hunger Strike Number Three
Before the demonstrations, Gulko organized a ten-day hunger strike timed to the 17th Congress of the CPSU in late February 1986. About eight people joined. This time they spared Anya.
Something new happened. Western television reporters showed up at their press conference. The KGB did not block them. Some kind of change was in the air.
Gulko describes the hunger strike with typical dry humor. He felt horrible on days five and six but wonderful by day ten. And the female refuseniks who joined him had become “noticeably prettier.” Better skin color, a twinkle in their eyes. Gulko guessed it was “a hungry twinkle.” In the middle of a serious political act, this man notices that hunger makes women look better. Very human writing.
Daily Demonstrations at the Gogol Monument
On April 10, 1986, the campaign began. Daily protests at Arbatskaya Square near the Gogol monument. They even asked Moscow’s government for official permission. Of course, in the Soviet Union, the constitutional right to demonstrate existed only on paper.
Day one was a mess. They tried sneaking out at 5 AM in thick fog. Two figures followed them everywhere. At 3 PM, three Western TV crews waited by the monument. Near a movie theater, a crowd of men surrounded the Gulkos. A police major claimed they looked like wanted criminals.
Then Gulko spotted a small, fidgety man giving orders. He pointed and shouted: “This man is from the KGB!” The man ran away. KGB agents were all-powerful, but they had one rule: their membership could never be revealed in public.
They spent nine hours in police stations, shuffled between three precincts. The legal limit was three hours. The KGB simply started a new detention every three hours.
The Routine of Resistance
By day two, the arrests became routine. The Gulkos started bringing a backgammon set. Get arrested, play backgammon for three hours, get released, write a complaint to Gorbachev. Repeat tomorrow.
The KGB assigned permanent surveillance: two teams of four, each with a “gorilla” who could kill with one blow, two clever-looking men “who today probably own banks,” and a driver. The cars had no license plates. A physicist had previously written down their plate numbers in a complaint, so the KGB just removed them. Stupid solution, but driving around Moscow without plates wasn’t exactly smart either.
They gave agents nicknames. “Killer” had murderous eyes. “Marlon Brando” wore a wide-brimmed hat. “Housewife” carried a shopping bag as cover.
I grew up in a former USSR country. The surveillance culture Gulko describes was real. You just always assumed someone was listening.
The Day Nobody Came
On April 13, a Sunday, they emerged from the metro and suddenly nobody was around them. No interception. No fake police stops. They were allowed to reach the monument. This was the most frightening moment. As Gulko writes, he discovered exactly where fear lives in the body: “somewhere at the bottom of the stomach. Like a cold, unpleasant weight.”
They unrolled their poster. A KGB agent tore it up. That was it. No arrest. And Gulko felt relief. If they didn’t put him in prison today, doing it tomorrow would make even less sense. He recognized this from chess, the dynamics of a fight shifting.
The next day, Anya sewed the words “Let us go to Israel” onto dark blue T-shirts. Now the poster was on their bodies. You can’t tear a T-shirt off someone as easily as you tear paper.
The Maltese Ambassador
On May 5, the ambassador of Malta showed up at the monument with his wife. He engaged the Gulkos in “diplomatic conversation.” Nobody arrested them that day. Within months, Giuseppe was declared persona non grata and expelled. His career was over. When Gulko met him in Milan, he tried to console him: “No good deed goes unpunished.”
Among public reactions, one stands out. A sick old man told Gulko: “I salute you. I have to die here.” He pointed toward the Arbat. “But I salute you.” Gulko thought this man knew the Gulag from personal experience, not from Solzhenitsyn’s book.
The Breakthrough
On May 6, Anya suddenly said: “Let’s run!” They sprinted from their KGB tail, ducked through an underground passageway, and slipped into a building. It turned out to be Boris Yeltsin’s reception hall. They wrote him a letter, caught their breath, and walked out. Nobody was waiting.
They used the freedom to recruit. Volodya Apekin, a biologist who needed heart surgery, agreed to join. When he showed up at the monument in his own “Let us go to Israel” T-shirt, leaning on a cane, it changed everything. Adding a third person meant the demonstration was growing. Phones rang at the Lubyanka.
At the police station, agents forcibly removed their T-shirts. Gulko and Apekin gave in. Anya didn’t.
Two days later, a summons came to visit the Visa Registration Office. Inspector Sazonova told Gulko to fill out new forms. He pushed back. Finally she said the magic words: “Fill out the forms, bring them back, and you’ll get a postcard.” A “postcard” meant permission to leave.
Gulko’s ears refused to process it. Anya, listening from outside, heard Sazonova shouting “You’ve been given permission” while Gulko kept arguing. Seven years of waiting had made his brain unable to accept good news.
The Last Petty Acts
Even after getting permission, the KGB kept following them. On the way out, customs stole their chess library and all their medals, including USSR championship golds and FIDE golds. Gulko’s sister Bella later sued. During the trial, an unknown man pulled the judge into a back room. The judge came back pale and dismissed the case.
That is the Soviet Union in a nutshell. Fight the system for seven years and win your freedom. They will still steal your medals on the way out.
Freedom, Felt Through the Skin
The flight to Vienna was nearly empty. A fellow passenger, Pasha, kept covering his mouth while talking because he believed the KGB could read lips. Gulko yelled: “Pasha, take away your hand! We’re free!” Pasha smiled. A minute later, the hand was back. Habits of many years.
Gulko says freedom became “the dominant feeling in my life.” He felt it with every part of his body, including his skin. A year and a half later, playing chess in Los Angeles with a mouth full of blood after dental surgery, he checked: was the feeling still there? Yes.
In 1990, after beating Kasparov 3-0 in their personal score, a reporter asked: “What was the happiest moment of your life after leaving the Soviet Union?”
“The happiest moment of my life was the actual moment of my departure from the Soviet Union.”
Anyone who has left a place where they were not free will understand that answer. Freedom is not abstract. It is a physical sensation. You feel it most when you remember what it was like not to have it.
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