Valery Borshchev: biography, activities and interesting facts

This man has been one of the ideologists of the human rights movement in our country for several decades. Valery Borshchev, namely, he will be discussed, began to raise the problem of human rights violations even at a time when the KGB authorities opened a real hunt for those who were trying to help the ordinary citizens to restore justice. First of all, he defended the interests of political prisoners, as well as people, whom the authorities pursued for their religious convictions.

Today Valery Borshchev is an authoritative advocate of truth and an active fighter with lawlessness. These functions he took as a basis, working in the Human Rights Committee under the President of the Russian Federation, the Moscow Helsinki Group, the All-Russian Human Rights Movement For Human Rights.

What was remarkable about this man's biography? Let's consider this issue in more detail.

Years of childhood and adolescence

Valery Vasilievich Borshchev - a native of the village Chernyannoe (Tambov region). He was born on December 1, 1943 in an ordinary Soviet family. Father worked as an engineer in the military industry, and his mother worked as a civil engineer. The family often moved from place to place, so Valery repeatedly changed the schools in which he studied. He got the certificate of maturity in Rostov-on-Don.

In his youth, Valery Borshchev tried to stand out from the crowd, preferring to wear exceptionally stylish clothes. At the same time, to such marginality, the teachers of the Moscow State University, where the young man entered the journalist's degree, were critical.

But in 1966 he still receives a coveted diploma.

"KP"

After graduating from journalism, Valery Borshchev gets a job at Komsomolskaya Pravda. He becomes an employee of the Institute "Public Opinion" (one of the structures "KP"), and after a while the journalist is transferred to the department of Komsomol life and youth problems, where he works as a correspondent. The heroes of his publications were people who secretly opposed themselves to the existing regime. Valery Borshchev often went on business trips, initiated by complaints. Once he met in a provincial Rubtsovsk with a man who was the author of an angry letter against the Communists, written after the political events in Czechoslovakia. Another time, upon his arrival to the city of Biysk, he managed to communicate with young people who invented an unusual charter of the Komsomol, which did not quite correspond to the tasks of building a socialist state.

New Horizons

In the seventies, events took place that changed the career development vector in the life of Valery Vasilyevich.

From the Soviet Union expelled the eminent Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In protest, he decides to sever the employment relationship with the "Komsomolskaya Pravda". He meets and talks with Academician Andrei Sakharov on observing the rights of a Soviet citizen, after which a real revolution is taking place in his inner consciousness. But in 1975, he is not yet ready to fully deal with the problem of lawlessness in the USSR. After being fired from Komsomolskaya Pravda, he finds employment in the printed edition of the Soviet Screen. For several years he interviewed the stars of the stage and the cinema: Alla Pugacheva, Bulat Okudzhava, Rolan Bykov, Oleg Tabakov and others.

The beginning of human rights activities

In parallel, Valery Borshchev, whose biography is of great interest to many, begins an active work in the Committee of the Rights of Believers. In a new quality for himself, he began to provide assistance to political prisoners and their relatives. In particular, the exiles received food, literature, and money.

Often, Valery Vasilyevich himself went to places of detention, handed over the parcel to the prisoners and was personally interested in them how the rights of those who are kept in prisons are observed. However, the Soviet leadership did not intend to make concessions to political prisoners and only intensified the struggle against dissidents. This position of officials only disappoints the young human rights activist: he put the party card on the table and stopped working in the "Soviet screen". Friends-actors from the Taganka Theater - Vladimir Vysotsky and Valery Zolotukhin offered Borshchev to temporarily work as a fireman in the Melpomene Church. After some time, he happened to experience such trades as a cycle-builder, a painter-tall man, a carpenter. Valery Vasilyevich even managed to work in an underground printing house, where a literature of religious content was produced. It was created by one of the friends of human rights activist - Victor Burdyug.

Opal

In the early 80's, the Chekists identified the ideologists of the Committee of the rights of believers and put them on handcuffs. To avoid arrest, Borshchev left the capital for some time. He came out of the underground only after the trial of the dissident Gleb Yakunin took place.

But even after that, Valery Borshchev (human rights activist) was under the watchful eye of the KGB, who in the mid-80s warned him about stopping anti-Soviet propaganda.

Moscow Helsinki Group

In this human rights organization, he entered shortly after her revival. In 1987, Valery Borshchev took part in the first human rights forum, while law enforcement agencies then warned that the organizers of the event are facing criminal prosecution. At the same time, the human rights activist did not leave the profession of a journalist, working in the late 80's as an editor of the journal Znanie-sila.

Work in power structures

Of course, Valery Borshchev was unhappy with the old regime. Politics entered the sphere of his professional interests, already when the USSR was living out its last days. In the early 90's he took the deputy seat in the Moscow City Council (the predecessor of today's Moscow City Duma). After some time in the legislative body of the capital, he already headed the Commission, which oversees issues in the field of freedom of religion, conscience, charity and charity.

In 1994, Borshchev became a deputy of the State Duma. In this capacity, he helped to carry out the legislative act "On Charitable Activities and Charitable Organizations". Valery also dealt with the problematic affairs of religious organizations and public associations, oversaw the sphere of observance of the rights of prisoners serving sentences in places of deprivation of liberty. An interesting fact: when war broke out in Chechnya, Borshchev was one of the first to try to persuade separatist Dzhokhar Dudayev to abandon the idea of separating the republic from Russia. But unfortunately, such an initiative was not successful, and blood began to spill in Chechnya.

HE TO

In 2008 Valery Vasilyevich began to manage the Public-Monitoring Commission of the capital. As an experienced and eminent expert on upholding the rights of an ordinary citizen, he absolutely deservedly occupied this important post. But among his colleagues there are people who believe that Valery Borshchev is a human rights activist by order. Such a position is motivated by the fact that the head of the Moscow PSC pays attention to specific personalities and ignores the problems of other prisoners. In particular, we are talking about Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail in 2009. It is to this case that the maximum attention was paid by Valery Vasilyevich. "What about the problems of other prisoners?" Human rights activists are perplexed. In addition, they are questioned by Borshchev's special interest in defending destructive sects. Or maybe the human rights activist acts to please the West? Such a thought sometimes arises in the colleagues of Borshchev.

Still, the commission's staff can not understand why the head of their structure does not hurry up with the adoption of the rules for the work of the PMC.

Undoubtedly, Borshchev Valery did a great job of protecting human rights. Who is he and whose interests are defended? One way or another, but this question for some has become a cornerstone in the evaluation of his work.

One thing is clear: he never divided people according to social, professional and ethnic background, recognizing the same scope of rights for everyone.

The human rights activist is married. He has a daughter. At leisure prefers to go fishing.