Isaac Gilyutin, a 36-year-old cybernetist from Leningrad, was detained last week by the Soviet authorities just as he, his wife, and daughter were about to board a plane on their way to Israel. This information was made available to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency by Mark Levitt, a 22-year-old medical student from Philadelphia who has just returned from a visit to the Soviet Union and who said he was a witness to the incident in the Leningrad airport.
According to Levitt, the customs officers at Leningrad’s airport checked Gilyutin’s luggage and found a number of personal paintings that the Gilyutins intended to take with them to Israel. Levitt said that Gilyutin offered to pay 50 rubles fine for not declaring the paintings, but the airport authorities refused to accept it and instead detained him on charges of “art smuggling.”
Gilyutin, Levitt said, is now awaiting a trial in which he expects to be sentenced to three years in prison. His wife and child are staying with relatives in Leningrad since they sold their apartment and belongings before their aborted trip to Israel.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
