记者来鸿：重访前苏联异见者的奇特感受

choi

本内特·琼斯, 记者来鸿：重访前苏联异见者的奇特感受. BBC Chinese, Mar 6, 2017
http://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/fooc-39128613

, which is translated from

Owen Bennett Jones, Semyon Gluzman: Meeting a Soviet-Era Dissident Again After 35 Years. BBC, Feb 26, 2017.
www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39082466

Note:
(a) "In the Soviet Union there * * * was psychiatrist  Semyon Gluzman [1946-  (age 70) ], who condemned the incarceration of dissidents in mental hospitals. The BBC's Owen Bennett Jones met him once in the 1980s * * * [flashback] It all began when I told my tutor at the London School of Economics * * * It was Gluzman he wanted me to meet [in Kiev, capital of Ukraine]. 'He's just back from exile in Siberia,' my tutor said * * * He [Gluzman] was a sorry sight, with sunken cheeks [and so on]"
(i)
(A) Semyon Gluzman, Appeal of former political prisoner to the Dutch population: vote 'yes'!  Euromaiden Press,Feb 16, 2016
http://euromaidanpress.com/2016/ ... vote-yes/#arvlbdata
("At the age of twenty-five I became a prisoner in a KGB prison. A Soviet judge found me then, in 1972, to be a dangerous criminal of the State, and sent me for seven years to a camp with strict regime and three years of exile in Siberia")

Altogether ten years.
(B) Netherlands Rejects EU-Ukraine Partnership Deal. BBC, Apr 7, 2016.
www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35976086
(ii) sorry (adj):
"1 :  feeling sorrow, regret, or penitence
* * *
3 :  inspiring sorrow, pity, scorn, or ridicule :  PITIFUL <their affairs were in a sorry state>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sorry

Definition 3 fits the bill.

(b) "After I recorded a radio programme in Kiev recently, one of the panellists - an MP - asked if I had ever been in the country before.  'Thirty-five years ago [1981? 1982?],' I said."

(c) "I called.  'Da.'   'You don't know me,' I said, 'but we met 35 years ago' "
(i) The Russian word for "yes" (or "yes") is "да," which is transliterated as "da" (or "Da").
(ii) Russian alphabet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_alphabet

The upper and lower case of д looks similar.

(d) " 'There were many [visitors]. Maybe 90% were people sent from American synagogues. They thought I was a refusenik.' The term referred to Soviet Jews who wanted to go to Israel but were refused permission [by Soviet Union].  'But it was a misunderstanding,' he [Gluzman] went on. 'I was not a refusenik. One man came from New Orleans. "Yes, I am Jewish," I said [at the time to the New Orleanian], "but I was in a camp for political prisoners. I'm staying here in Ukraine." After about 15 minutes he understood my position.'   'I could have left,' he [now] said."
(i) refusenik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refusenik
(ii)
(A) -nik (suffix; from Russian (on the pattern of sputnik) and Yiddish): "(forming nouns) denoting a person associated with a specified thing or quality  <beatnik> <refusenik?"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/-nik
(B) -nik (suffix; Yiddish, from Polish & Ukrainian): "one connected with or characterized by being <beatnik>"
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/-nik
(iii)
(A) sputnik (n; Russian, literally 'fellow-traveller')
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/sputnik
(B) sputnik (n; Russian, literally, traveling companion, from s, so with + put' path)
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Sputnik
(iv)
(A) Beatnik
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatnik(Beat Generation)
(B) Beat Generation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Generation
(section 1 Origin of name)