The Korobeynikovs’ apartment is full of delicate paintings by their daughter Nina. On her T-shirt she drew a purple triangle, which Jehovah’s Witnesses were forced to wear in the Nazi concentration camps. They hadn’t taken pictures together in a long time; not since Olga, Nina’s mother, became bedridden. I’m glad they let me photograph the whole family. Vladimir (“Volodya”) Korobeynikov¹Vladimir Aleksandrovich Korobeynikov, born 1952. Articles 282.2(1), 282.3(1) of the RF CrC. Time in custody: 3 days in the TDF, 70 days in Detention Center № 1 of the Kirov Region, 284 days under house arrest. Current preventive measure: recognizance agreement. In June 2022, Vladimir Korobeynikov was given a suspended sentence of 3 years and 3 months. also joined in our conversation. Nina gave me an exquisite picture of a praying mantis as a parting gift. In this home there is a lot of warmth and love, and a great deal of pain.

Formerly a confirmed atheist

– How did you become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

– O.: I was a confirmed atheist. I worked in a kindergarten, and at parent-teacher meetings I did all I could to promote atheism. If the children talked about religion, I would talk to their parents. So, when Jehovah’s Witnesses came and started talking about the New World, I looked at them and said, “You are obviously intelligent, educated people. How can you believe in these fairy tales?” And they replied, “We didn’t believe it either – until we saw the evidence.” – “It will be almost impossible to convince me,” I replied. “But if you can find evidence that I can accept – as stubborn as I am – then… let’s give it a try.”

I started studying the Bible in 1995: at that time, Volodya wasn’t studying, but he wasn’t opposed either. He noticed that the more I learned about the Bible, the better I became. In the past, I was sure that I was the head of the family, but I began to respect my husband.

At that time, we were on the verge of divorce. I blamed Volodya for all my failings and disappointments; I believed that he was the root cause of all my problems. We were already arguing about who would be the one to file for divorce – who needed it more. While we were arguing, Jehovah’s Witnesses came to us.

– To save your family?

– O.: Yes. Because we loved each other. We always made up after our arguments. Volodya and I were baptized together in 1996.

As I studied the Bible, I began to search for problems in myself: could I be the one who was doing something wrong? I thought back over every argument we had had, and I realized that something I said – my words – had triggered every one of them. It was very difficult to make changes, and it was a very long process. Sometimes I still lose my temper, especially when I’m in a lot of pain or I can’t sleep because I’m worried about Nina.

Lupus

– May I ask what causes your severe pain? And why you have an orthopedic collar?

– O.: I’ve had it for twenty years now. It’s a spinal problem. Doctors told me long ago that surgery won’t help – my muscles can’t support my back; my vertebrae are degenerating in different directions. My mother was bedridden: she had lupus. I’m bedridden: I can stand up only for a few minutes. Nina has lupus too. She suffers a lot with it. The disease is passed down through the female line.

– N.: It’s rare to find the disease in three generations in a row.

– O.: I don’t actually have lupus, but I’ve fallen apart. My brittle bones have been breaking ever since I was a child.

When I first became bedridden, Jehovah’s Witnesses took care of me. Volodya was working then, and Nina was in school.

– What was Nina studying?

– N.: I was learning the art of panel painting. It’s not really my thing, but it helped me develop my aesthetic sense. When I was a child I wasn’t allowed to draw because I had problems with my vision. Then my eyesight stabilized, and in high school I finally got my hands on a brush and a pencil. But I have no idea what my paintings look like because my vision is distorted.

– Your drawings and batik are very beautiful. You are very talented.

– O.: Nina went to a kindergarten and a school for visually impaired children. And they told me, “Take the pencils away from her!” But she loved drawing so much!

– N.: It’s all in the genes: my grandmother passed down my lupus and my artistic ability. I give many of my paintings to people when I want to thank them.

A proper search

– Let’s begin with the search of October 9, 2018.

– O.: Only Volodya and I were home. Nina was away. The search went calmly, there was no violence. I have respect for the law enforcement agencies. Those who came to conduct the search did their job and behaved respectfully. They didn’t humiliate us. My dad was a prosecutor and my mom was a police lieutenant. I know what a hard job it is.

Everything was proper and polite. The search lasted four hours. They took all our electronic devices – our computer and our phones. They took away my good old push-button phone, and I was left without a way to communicate.

– That’s the kind of propriety that could give you a heart attack.

– O.: The investigator found some piece of paper and showed it to the attesting witnesses: “Look, these are the kind of papers they use when they steal from the residents of Kirov.” And our neighbor replied, “Yes, yes, I know – there was a story about that on TV.” Then another neighbor, a woman, saw an old wardrobe in the room – 44 years old, every year I think about replacing it with a new one, but I can’t afford to. I joked that we were “stealing,” but we couldn’t afford to fix our ceiling or buy a new wardrobe. She just waved me off and left.

I asked the investigator, “What did I do wrong?” He said, “I’m not the one who banned you. But since they banned you, we’re doing our job. Personally, I have nothing against you.”

– Do you have any questions for those who banned the Administrative Center and the local religious organizations of Jehovah’s Witnesses?

– O.: My question is: What kind of extremist activity have I carried out? I love people, and I respect people of all faiths. We have relatives, friends and neighbors who are atheists, Orthodox and Muslims. We treat everyone with equal kindness and we respect their right to have their own beliefs. We respect them as long as they don’t start killing someone for the sake of their beliefs. We can’t respect terrorism and extremism. But we are not extremists!

Another question: What has my husband done? Before we became Jehovah’s Witnesses we might have cheated someone in everyday matters, we might have deceived someone, but in small ways. Now we don’t allow ourselves even such trivial lapses.

Yuriy Geraskov, a bright soul

– They took your husband away, you were bedridden, your daughter was far away, and they took your phone. What could you do?

– O.: The investigator called a neighbor who had served as an attesting witness and told her to let me use her phone to call people who could come and take care of me. I didn’t get through to anyone, but soon Yuriy Geraskov came; he had also been taken in for interrogation and then released. He was seriously ill. Yuriy didn’t go home after the interrogation; he came to see me, to find out how he could help me. “Yuriy, buy me a phone!” By the next day, I was connected. His wife brought me meals and bought me groceries and medicine.

– V.: Yuriy’s nose was bleeding during the investigation. And for some reason the investigator took a particular dislike to him and treated him with contempt. Maybe that stress accelerated his illness.

– Sophisticated cruelty to an infirm person, instead of empathy – “he took a particular dislike to him,” as if they get pleasure from abusing the seriously ill.

– N.: It’s physically taxing for a person in such a condition to sit in the Investigative Committee office for half a day at a time to familiarize himself with documents.

– O.: When Yuriy couldn’t take it anymore and would leave, they wrote: “He refused to familiarize himself with the documents.”

– N.: Once at the Investigative Committee office he asked them to call an ambulance, but they refused. He would come to see us, right up to the end. He was a very optimistic man. His family was the most hospitable of all our friends. They had a small studio apartment, but they loved to have guests! What a spread they always put out! They were so happy to have us! I loved visiting them. He treated toddlers and teenagers as if they were his own children; he looked after the little ones. And even in the final stage of his cancer, he remained hospitable and kept his sense of humor. He was a bright, warm person.

In view of your wife’s illness, we can let you go home tomorrow…

– V.: When they took me away and I ended up in the detention center, I was very worried, thinking that Olga was left without a phone. She has attacks of pain. How would she call an ambulance? Who would help her? Nina was away at the time. I didn’t find out that everything was all right until I started getting letters.

–They started letting your letters through after three weeks. All that time you didn’t know what was happening to your wife?

– V.: Nothing. They kept me in solitary confinement – it was a complete information blockade.

– N.: They even hinted to dad that we were dead; that was their way of trying to break him. Dad wrote to one of our friends, “Tell me honestly everything that is going on. Even the most tragic truth.”

– Did they try to manipulate you with your wife’s and daughter’s illnesses during the interrogations?

– V.: At the very beginning, the investigator came to the detention center; he was all prepared, with a document and a pen, and he started hinting that I should cooperate with them. “In view of your wife’s situation, we can let you go home tomorrow.” But I immediately told him that I had never betrayed my friends and I would never betray them. And that I would never betray Jehovah. He took the paper back and said, “Take him away!”

– How long did they keep you in the detention center?

– V.: Two and a half months. They detained me on October 9, 2018, and on December 20 there was a hearing that transferred me to house arrest. The hearing was held via a conference call from the detention center. I couldn’t understand why the detention center staff was so cheerful – was it a holiday for them or something? They were so astonished that I was released from the detention center because they were sure that no one would ever be released from that place. I was the first.

– N.: A brother and I went straight from the courtroom to pick dad up, so we couldn’t bring any warm clothes for him. But it was warm in the car. At the detention center they didn’t believe that dad had been released. But when dad walked out anyway, they waved him goodbye.

– V.: There was no escort, no ankle monitor. I could’ve run away then, but I didn’t. Later they came and set up the phone and put the ankle monitor on. At first, I wasn’t allowed to leave the apartment and go out on the stairwell landing; then they let me go for walks within the city limits. Then they changed it to a recognizance agreement, and took the ankle monitor off. But I was still forbidden to use the phone or the Internet or to communicate with the others in the same criminal case.

Let’s call your mom or your dad

– When did Nina return home?

– O.: Nina arrived soon after the search and was taken to the hospital right away. I was left alone again, but sisters and brothers were already coming by – preparing food and trying to persuade me to eat something. They took packages to Volodya in the detention center; they took care of all of us. Our large Witness family.

– N.: On the day of the search, I was far away and couldn’t reach my parents or friends by phone. They searched all the houses and confiscated all the phones.

When I came back, I had to be admitted to the hospital. A few days later, I asked to be discharged from the hospital. I told the doctor the whole story – that my dad was in pre-trial detention and that my mom was bedridden. They let me go, but not for long. While riding on a bus back to the hospital, I fainted. The conductor asked everyone to clear the bus and she called an ambulance. “Shall we call your mom?” – “No, anyone but my mom!” – “Should we call your dad?” I burst into tears. Apparently, I was hyperventilating and it affected my heart.

– Nina, who returned home first: you or your dad?

– N.: I did.

– Did being together make it easier?

– O.: Yes, of course. But there was a lot of pressure on Nina. Usually her dad looks after her; now she had to look after me and take care of her dad in the detention center, taking him packages. In November, Volodya started to receive and send letters regularly; he calmed down once he knew that everything was all right at home.

– V.: To deliver parcels to the detention center, you have to wait in line for a long time.

– N.: While I was waiting in line, I would usually come across friends, who would say: “Nina, we’ll take care of everything for you – go home.”

– O.: And when Nina got sick, our spiritual sisters would take care of us.

– How can you live for three years when your husband and your dad are under investigation and on trial? How do people adapt to such difficult circumstances?

– N.: It was hardest in the beginning. People are probably made in such a way that they can adapt to any conditions. It was amazing how calm my mom was.

– O.: Without prayer – without God – we couldn’t have coped. By nature, I’m panicky and high-strung, but I just prayed for God to give me the strength to keep calm. I asked myself, “Is there anything I can do for my husband? Can I change the situation? – No. Then what’s the point of hysterics? Keep your dignity, stay calm.” I would open the Bible, read, and recall examples of how to behave in such situations.

– N.: I worried most of all about mom. Before this happened, she was living in anxious expectation: what if they came to conduct a search and she was home alone?

– O.: During the search, it was as if I froze.

– That’s a state of shock.

– O.: Then after they left, I sobbed and sobbed; I was so worried about Volodya: he has problems with his legs and spine. How could he survive in the detention center?

Relatives and Neighbors

– How did your relatives react to Volodya’s arrest?

– Our relatives don’t share our views, but they know that Volodya is a kind and good man, so they were shocked; they kept saying, “It’s a mistake, a mistake!”

– During the Great Terror of the 1930s, those who were arrested would say, “Comrade Stalin will straighten it out.”

– N.: At first, they didn’t call, and we began to think that our relatives had abandoned us. Then dad’s sisters, who don’t accept our faith, came to visit and said, “Volodya, don’t give up!” They know that we haven’t broken any laws.

– O.: But they’re afraid of how they might be affected, afraid of negative public opinion. But their best friend, who stopped communicating with us when we became Witnesses, came to see us when dad was released from the detention center.

– Previously they turned their back on you; now they’ve done an about-face. That’s wonderful.

– O.: All our neighbors sympathized with us. When we were collecting signatures for a character reference for Volodya; no one refused to sign, even those from whom we didn’t expect support.

– N.: One neighbor took a page of the character reference and went around to the rest of our neighbors, telling people that the Korobeynikovs need help. In our previous communal apartment complex the neighbors gave us trouble, but here people are good.

– O.: Another neighbor brought us tomatoes and other groceries. Our relations with our neighbors have always been good, but they have become even better.

Baba Zhenya

– Did many letters arrive at the detention center?

– N.: Tons!

– May I take a picture?

– O.: Of course. We kept some of them.

– Are there any letters that you particularly remember?

– N.: One of our sisters– we call her Baba Zhenya –is 96 years old. She endured the Stalinist camps, and she described her hardships in her letters. At that time, she wasn’t even a Witness yet; she just asked some Witnesses who lived in the neighborhood questions about their faith. She wrote to us, “I understand very well what you are going through, because I have experienced it myself, and it seemed as though it would never end. First my husband and I served out 10 years in hard labor camps; then a year and 8 months later he was sentenced to another 10 years. It seemed that our life would be like that forever; but while our Creator allows suffering, he also provides relief. The days flew by, year after year; 10 years flew by, in hardship and sickness. Then we found ourselves together again, and we lived together for another 37 years.”

A Princess from a pea

– O.: Who are these people calling an extremist? My husband! A man who will step aside even for a bug – he won’t stomp on it.

– N.: Shall we talk about bugs? I respect insects.

– O.: We’ll show you our pets: we have four exotic frogs and geckos. Recently a miracle happened: a tiny female gecko hatched out of a little egg. We named her Lily.

– A princess from a pea?

– O.: Exactly! From a pea.

– N.: The frogs eat drosophila flies; I made a special trip to Moscow to get them.

– O.: I developed a very strong allergy to my former pets, so we had to give them away. Nina asked me if we could at least get some houseplants. And then she found out that there are frogs that are extremely poisonous in the wild, but in captivity they are completely harmless, and we got some. They’re poison dart frogs, tree frogs, whose venom the Indians used to rub on their arrows.

– Where in your apartment do they live?

– O.: In our terrarium. They recognize people’s voices. In the morning, I like to wake up to the frog’s song, they sing very softly. If they’re not afraid of you, they come out.

– That little beauty came out – Hello! And the male gecko is sitting with such dignity!

– It’s a rare endangered species. Our female died, but fortunately she managed to lay an egg before that.

– What fragile, delicate creatures! Exquisite and gentle.

– N.: Because of her illness, mom can’t even go outdoors; but in our terrarium we have plants from South America, Tanzania, and other places.

– O.: Nina is now on strong painkillers. Once they wear off, it will be difficult for her to talk. She has to endure until her operation.

– N.: No, it’s the opposite – the pills make me dizzy and it’s hard to talk. The operation, I hope, will be on March 2. They will do a microvascular decompression of my trigeminal nerve: the artery and the nerve are pressing on each other; they need to be released. The diagnosis is “neurovascular conflict of trigeminal nerve.” The surgery is life-threatening, but the pain is unbearable, so I persuaded my doctor to operate on me.

– Will you have the operation in Kirov?

– N.: We have good neurosurgeons in our city, but they try to talk me out of it because of the risks. But I think I need to get off painkillers as soon as possible.

– O.: With lupus, any invasive treatment is dangerous; but it’s also impossible to live with severe pain.

– Have you been suffering with this pain for long?

– N.: Since October 2021.

– Two years after the search and your father’s arrest. Did your dad’s persecution affect your physical condition?

– N.: At first, I thought it wasn’t affecting me; but after two years I realized that prolonged expectation and anxiety had a big impact on my health.

– Did you fall into depression?

– N.: The lupus itself and the drugs that I take for it cause depression. So I have many reasons for depression.

– You are both incredibly resilient and talented women. I marvel at you: despite such severe illnesses and severe pain, you are full of love for each other, hope for something better and a creative attitude to life.

– N.: I would like to give you a drawing as a gift. You choose.

– May I have the mantis? Beautiful work. “M. Flores”?

– N.: Of course you may! That’s my pseudonym.

– Thank you very much. I wish you an acquittal in court, a successful operation, and the united support of your loved ones.

February 9, 2022

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  Vladimir Aleksandrovich Korobeynikov, born 1952. Articles 282.2(1), 282.3(1) of the RF CrC. Time in custody: 3 days in the TDF, 70 days in Detention Center № 1 of the Kirov Region, 284 days under house arrest. Current preventive measure: recognizance agreement. In June 2022, Vladimir Korobeynikov was given a suspended sentence of 3 years and 3 months. ↩︎