Vladlen Pavlenkov
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Vladlen Konstantinovich Pavlenkov (langx|ru|Владлен КонстантиновичПавленков) (4 May 1929 – 31 January 1990) was a Soviet dissident, noted for his activities related to Soviet-American postal communications during the Cold War.[1]
He was born in the Soviet Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod in 1929, which was renamed Gorky in 1932. A decorated participant in the Soviet war effort during World War II, he had been given a medal for his volunteer work as a boy during the war. After graduating from GSU (Gorky State University), he worked as a history teacher in Soviet-Bloc East Germany from 1953-1956. Upon returning to his home city of Gorky, he first became a high school principal; then he became a college teacher. He married Svetlana Pavlenkova in 1957. He was arrested in 1969 for accusations of spreading propaganda and inciting agitation. He was given a seven-year sentence, which he served in multiple prisons and labor camps throughout the Soviet Union; the final year and a half of which was in the infamous Vladimir Central Prison. Upon his release, he was under heavy pressure from the KGB (the state security police of the Soviet Union) to emigrate.
In 1979, Vladlen Pavlenkov emigrated to the United States with his wife and son and, speaking little English, found work as a security guard. In 1982, he founded the non-profit Freedom of Communications Committee (FC), whose aim was to promote personal communications between Americans and Soviets through postal mail, telephone, and telegraph.