LETTERS THROWN OVER THE FENCE

In 1944, Pyotr, Regina’s future husband, was imprisoned in a camp in Gorki Oblast for maintaining Christian neutrality. This in no way checked his zeal for preaching. Pyotr wrote letters, each one containing a brief explanation of a Bible teaching. He then put each letter into an envelope, secured it with string to a stone, and threw it over the high barbed-wire fence. Pyotr hoped that someone would read the letters, and one day someone did​—a girl named Lidia Bulatova. Pyotr saw her and quietly called her over. He asked her if she would like to learn more about the Bible. Lidia liked the idea, and they arranged to meet again. After that, she regularly came to pick up more of those precious letters.

Lidia became a zealous sister and preacher of the good news who soon began to conduct Bible studies with Maria Smirnova and Olga Sevryugina. They too began to serve Jehovah. To support the sisters spiritually, the brothers began to supply this small group with spiritual food right from the camp. For this, Pyotr constructed a small suitcase with a double bottom, which he could stuff with magazines. He arranged for the suitcase to be taken in and out of the camp by non-Witnesses who were not prisoners. They took it to the address of one of the sisters.

Soon the sisters organized the preaching work in their area. The police took note of this and sent an agent to spy on them, as was usual in those times. The agent, a schoolteacher, pretended to be interested in the truth and gained the trust of the sisters. Since they had no experience in this regard, they happily shared Bible truths with their new “sister” and later told her how the literature got to them. The next time the suitcase was on its way out, Pyotr was detained and sentenced to 25 years of additional imprisonment. The three sisters also received 25 years each.

[Pictures on page 95]

Olga Sevryugina became a servant of Jehovah as a result of Pyotr’s ‘rock letters’