End Game

A fast is broken

When Lidiya Vashchenko, 30, was admitted to Moscow's Botkin Hospital Jan. 30, her weight had dropped from 115 Ibs. to 84 Ibs., and she was dehydrated. Still she refused to eat until doctors threatened force-feeding. A visitor from the Illinois-based Christian Legal Society last week reported that Vashchenko was out of intensive care and "in good spirits."

Her recovery was a new twist in a particularly sensitive diplomatic stalemate. The Siberian Seven—Vashchenko, four family members and two friends—have lived in a 12-ft. by 20-ft. room in the basement of the U.S. embassy in Moscow since they crashed past embassy guards in 1978. They had hoped, vainly, that U.S. diplomats could arrange their departure from the Soviet Union, where they have suffered persecution for their Pentecostal beliefs. On Christmas Day, Vashchenko's mother Augustina began a hunger strike, and Lidiya joined three days later. As her health deteriorated, embassy officials decided to have her moved to the hospital.

Vashchenko's decision to eat surprised family members, but they were glad that her health was improving. When she leaves the hospital, she may be sent home to Siberia, to a psychiatric hospital for observation and questioning, or possibly to jail. "I don't think that I want to disgrace our friends," she wrote in a letter. "I believe that soon I will stand before the KGB. Then [my fate] will be their business."