Fasting Refusenik Shows Kidney, Liver Damage

The condition of a Soviet hunger striker, now in his third month of fasting in a bid to join his wife and children in the United States, has deteriorated in the past few days with signs of kidney and liver damage, his mother said Saturday.

A physician monitoring Yuri Balovlenkov has warned him that his condition is “dangerous,” his mother, Katerina Petrov, said. She said analysis of his urine has revealed traces of blood, among other signs of deteriorating kidney and liver function.

The physician, a family friend who visits regularly to check Balovlenkov’s condition, declined to speak in detail with a reporter, but she confirmed the findings of a urinalysis.

Balovlenkov, 35, completed the 61st day of his hunger strike Saturday. He has vowed to continue until Soviet authorities give him the exit visa he has sought for the past six years to join his American wife and two children in Baltimore.

Some diplomatic observers expressed concern Saturday that the Soviet government may be prepared to let Balovlenkov die, as an example to others who might contemplate hunger strikes to win exit permission.

“Who knows what the authorities will do? Take me to prison? I don’t know. That is their decision. Mine is to fast until they give me the visa they promised me,” Balovlenkov said Saturday.

Balovlenkov’s gaunt face, gray pallor and protruding ribs and hip bones attest to a weight loss of more than 50 pounds.

Since he began fasting on March 25, he said, he has taken only tea and water. In the past few days his speech has become rambling at times and difficult to understand.

He is married to Elena Kuzmenko, a nurse in Baltimore, and they have two children, Katerina, 4, and Masha, 2. A computer programmer, Balovlenkov met his wife while she was a tourist in Moscow in 1977. After a long struggle with the Soviet bureaucracy, they were married in December, 1978.