Avital Sharansky Avital Sharansky Avital Sharansky (born Natalia Stieglitz (, ) in Ukraine, 1950; married name also Shcharansky) is a former activist and public figure in the Soviet Jewry Movement who fought for the release of her husband, Natan Sharansky, from Soviet imprisonment. Avital and Nathan Sharansky met in October 1973. Shortly after meeting, Nathan Sharansky's exit visa was denied, and he became an active refusenik. Avital applied for a visa to Israel, and the couple began to discuss marriage. They married in 1974, one day and a half before Avital's exit visa expired. The day after their wedding, Avital left for
Vazif Meylanov years later, when, even without knowing it, I was living the last months in prison, sitting together with Meylanov in punishment cell, he also stood firm on his own, as at the beginning. The years of punishment cells and prisons fell behind, his health was destroyed, but KGB didn’t manage to break his spirit. In the political prisons there were a lot of resistant dissidents, but even on their background Meylanov stood out due to his enduring perseverance». — Natan Sharansky, "Fear no evil", 1991 Vazif Meylanov Vazif Sirazhutdinovich Meylanov (, 15 May 1940, Makhachkala, Dagestan ASSR, RSFSR, USSR –