Oct 1

By Admin. Peter Moshe Shamah.

So I want to share something personal with you, that illuminates the criminal oppression of the Russian state – as a decades old practice, that just gets worse and worse.

So, it’s story time my friends. Recently, I’ve seen a lot of stories of Russian businessmen/oligarchs “falling out of windows,” or meeting their end in other “mysterious ways; and more so, a lot of confusion in the West of “how such a thing could happen?”

Well, it’s time to tell you the story of a man who was related to my family by marriage, on my father’s side of the family: Garig Basmadjian. I never knew Garig, but his brother was like a father and mentor to me, may his memory be a blessing. This story has gotten me in trouble with “that country” in the past, but the men who murdered Garig, are the same men gathering intel and coordinating the bloody invasion and war against Ukraine, so frankly, I don’t give a damn if Russia bans me from entering for life. I will expose just this small kernel of truth, so that the world knows how the fascist crimes of Russia effect countless millions in the world.

Garig was born in Jerusalem, but eventually made his way to Paris, where he opened the art Galerie Garig Basmadjian, as well as translated poetry. My uncle worked very hard to pay to have his little brother Garig placed in art and music classes, and his whole family were cultured and educated in the arts. Over the years, Garig became friends with a man ned Norton Nodge, who had collaborated with him to create the largest collection of Soviet Non-Conformist Art outside of the Soviet Union.

So, Garig’s journies to Russia began. Garig became friends with a broad array of Soviet artists, writers, counterculture figures, etc. in a decade where Brezhnev slowly declined, and Gorbachev’s thaw helped facilitate a more open and free Russia. Despite the era of Glasnost and Perestroika, the KGB, today’s FSB had a firm stranglehold on certain areas of society, art being one of them. And as the USSR splintered, and whispers of independence spread throughout many satellites, the FSB had begun their merge with the mafia, and their tactics became as bloody and twisted as ever. Vladimir Putin, Kiril, and all the other demonic subhumans who rule the country know this well, as they were KGB agents/assets at that time.

Dodge and Basmadjian’s Exhibitions of Non-Conformist were constantly harassed across the world, in Paris, and America, with violent KGB agents even physically accosting the exhibition openings. Artists began disappearing, many hid underground. Many escaped to America and Israel in the late 80’s.

Garig was eventually captured by the KGB in his last trip to the USSR, in July of 1989, where he was “picked up” in a completely black car, by several men in all black, whom he did not know – according to footage from the hotel near the Kremlin, and the witness testimony of the receptionist. From there, nobody knows what happened to him, until a few years later, an escapee of the Butyrka Prison, an infamously horrific site where political prisoners were killed, claimed that Garig was in the cell next to him, begging the others that if they were to escape, call the French Embassy to let them know where he was held. But it was too late, “they took him downstairs, and nobody came back from downstairs.” That escapee subsequently disappeared as well.

His wife subsequently found out he was missing… when she arrived at the airport to collect him, only to find him nowhere to be seen. She studied Russian and learned the language fluently, traveling to Russia to look for her missing husband, and coming back home empty handed and heartbroken. Discussing Garig was the only time I ever saw my Uncle Anto cry, and it was the only discussion he ever abruptly cut off. Twenty three years later, the killing was blamed on a random mafiosa that the Kremlin simply wanted taken out of the picture, with none of the facts not adding up. Me, an amateur investigating the case found an endless set of inconsistencies with the Russian story. The FSB (Today’s successor org of the KGB) didnt even care to try and explain, or address the holes in the story. They kill with impunity. Some of the artists themselves died in “drug overdoses,” or the KGB special, “mysterious studio fires.”

So Garig disappeared, tortured and murdered by Russia in the hell that is Butyrka prison, his wife a widow, his children fatherless, for the crime of showing the world the art of Russian dissidents. I’ve left out many details of the story, to prevent this from being a twenty page post, but I think you got my point.

If you live in New York and New Jersey, go visit the Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. It houses the largest collection of Soviet Non-Conformist Art in the world, the artwork that Garig was murdered to show the world.

More than that? Do everything in your power to fight the evil of the Russian Federation. Support every state that they’ve imperialized and brutalized. Support Ukraine, both the refugees scattered across the world, and the brave warriors and heros fighting the Ruscists, in their ongoing fight against murderous Russian Fascism. Support the artists, writers, and musicians across the world helping Ukraine. Dont forget what the Russians also did to Moldova, to Abkhazia and Ossetia, to Chechnya. Protest outside their embassies, boycott their goods, make their life hell. Remember the names of every single city theyve bombed and tortured in Ukraine. Support the Russian dissidents fighting a thankless and seemingly hopeless battle against this dragon reborn. Do your part to demand that these inhuman beasts are brought to justice, and executed at The Hague – before they end us all in nuclear ash and death. And don’t forget Garig, his sacrifice saved countless thousands of works, each painting a world in and of itself.

Fight, and don’t stop, knowledge is just the first step. This is a war the world can’t afford to lose.

Please feel free to share this post if you feel inclined to do so, make sure Garig’s name and story are remembered.

SlavaUkraini