Clara Yakir. now in her seventies. spent more than 15 years breaking rocks as a common laborer in Siberia. Another relative of the Yakirs was jailed after a show trial in 1972 for documenting abuses of political prisoners in U.S.S.R. It was more than 10 years ago. in October of 1973. that Aleksander and his parents. Reema and Yevgeny Yakir. applied for exit visas. They were refused on the grounds of Yevgenys "secret classification" as a mechanical engineer. even though his job was entirely routine. The father lost his job and has since been eking out a living doing technical translations.