Jewish sources in the Soviet Union have reported that the Leningrad ovir office has withdrawn permission for Valery Panov to leave the Soviet Union. The reason given was that he deliberately refused to go without his wife, Galina Rogozina. Emigration officials further told the Jewish ballet star that administrative action would also be taken against him for his attitude. This action could include a sentence in a labor camp.
At the same time, Soviet newspapers carried an appeal released by the official Novosti Press Agency from Panov’s mother-in-law, Larissa Rogozina, to the Soviet Minister of Culture. In this Mrs. Rogozina stated that Valery had a “wicked and degrading influence” on her daughter, that he was keeping her from seeing Galina, and that he had insulted her on several occasions. Mrs. Rogozina concluded that she wanted Galina to remain in the Soviet Union because she was in poor health and needed the moral support of her daughter.
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