In Tartu, Estonia, at the age of 91, Estonian nationalist and long-time political prisoner of Russian camps Mart Niklus died. He had the opportunity to communicate and cooperate with this extraordinary man for several decades. He fought not only for the national independence of his small country, but also for that of Ukraine. In the most difficult time for Ukraine – in the early 1980s, when the KGB and communists practically drove the entire resistance movement to the camps, he, together with the Lithuanian political prisoner Viktoras Pätkus, joined the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, proving that, unlike the Moscow and other Helsinki groups, it not only did not cease to exist under repression, but on the contrary – it was growing. At that time, he was serving a 15-year special regime term in the Urals in the Kuchino zone with Stus, Lukyanenko, Mykhailo Goryn, Ovsienko, Horbal, and other Ukrainians. He was a kind and firm man. With a good sense of humor. Mart wrote to me a lot, sent postcards and newspaper clippings from various newspapers. Once I agreed in my homeland and I wrote articles for a newspaper in Tartu so that Estonians and local Russians would know more about Ukraine. Eternal memory to Niklus. A little more about him here.
Vakhtang Kipiani
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