Sergei Kourdakov was born in the Soviet Union. His father, an officer in Stalin’s army, did not return home one day. In those days of secrecy and intrigue between the adherents of Khrushchev and those of Stalin, many army officers who were Stalin’s most loyal supporters simply disappeared. Sergei’s father was an example of this situation. Soon after his father’s disappearance, Sergei’s mother died of illness, and at the age of five, he became an orphan in Soviet Russia.

The all-knowing Soviet State took over Sergei’s case, and he grew up in an orphanage. He learned the hardships of life in a Soviet orphanage, and as a result, he fought his way up through the internal social standings of the boys’ home to become what the orphans called “king.” Such status was not easily attained. In the fight with a rival to become king, Sergei lost a front tooth, which he regarded as a badge of honor.

As he grew older, Sergei Kourdakov became very active in the Communist Youth League. Soon, authorities marked him as a potential leader to receive higher training. Sergei vowed to himself that he would rise to the top, and he would do whatever it took to get there! He selected as his life’s motto, “Go ahead.”

In his latter days at the orphanage, Sergei fell into a life of crime. Secret drug deals were common. Such a life made for dangerous living. Sergei was once badly wounded in a drug fight, when one of his drug-dealing friends stabbed him with a knife.

Still, Sergei rose to leadership in the Communist Youth League. Following his recovery from the brutal stabbing, he was selected to be a cadet at the Soviet Naval Academy. The academy was located at Petropavlovsk, a Russian city on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

Meanwhile, another young person was also arriving in the city of Petropavlovsk. Natasha Zhdanova was a Russian girl who had been born in Ukraine. Her parents were peasants, and Natasha was taken in by her uncle on the other side of Russia—in the city of Petropavlovsk. It was believed that she could get a better education there.

Like Sergei, she was in the Communist Youth League. However, after her graduation at the age of eighteen, something very significant happened. The young lady became a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and was baptized. Her Savior and Lord was soon to bring her across the path of Sergei Kourdakov, now a cadet at the nearby naval academy.

Sergei’s fanatical zeal for the Communist cause and his reckless bravery had attracted attention. While still a cadet, he was approached one day by a major in the KGB, the Russian secret police, with an offer to begin training for this exciting branch of service. Sergei jumped at the opportunity! His training went swiftly. Sergei became the leader of a small squad of trained young men, men for whom cruelty became a way of life.

The KGB officials’ first assigned duty for Sergei was to deal with thugs. His responsibility was to break up fights in taverns, arrest criminals, and disrupt and stop riots. Sergei learned to be very adept at using his club, a heavy steel instrument covered with hard rubber. Soon the KGB gave Sergei more important assignments, such as rounding up and arresting members of a certain “secret organization” that opposed the policies of the Communist party.

Sergei entered this new work with vigor. In a period of approximately two years, he led close to 150 raids, broke up prayer meetings, arrested pastors, and beat up the believers who, to Sergei, were afflicted with a peculiar form of insanity since they believed in some imaginary “Jesus.”

One particularly memorable occasion, Sergei disrupted a baptismal service in the Russian forest. The pastor was killed by a terrible blow with a club. The new believers, still in their baptismal robes, were cruelly tortured by the KGB officers. The officers delighted in stuffing the believers’ mouths with sand and mud and then beating them unmercifully.

One day in a raid, Sergei saw Natasha Zhdanova, their paths crossing for the first time. She was, by this time, a mature young lady with long blond hair and clear, piercing blue eyes. Sergei, although impressed momentarily by her beauty, was too hardened to pity her. His men beat Natasha mercilessly, along with the other believers. Sergei took her papers and looked up her name in the KGB file, wondering what would make a young Russian woman join such a movement. From her file, he learned her life story. To his surprise, Sergei saw that she also had been a member of the Communist Youth League! He filed away the report, but he could not erase his memory of Natasha.

Only a few days later, Sergei went on another raid against a house church. As his men swung their clubs, knocking men’s teeth out and karate chopping with their bare hands the necks of old women, Sergei was startled to see a familiar face. It was the beautiful Russian young lady, Natasha! She had been beaten mercilessly by one of his men in a prior raid. Why had she returned?

Filled with fury, Sergei shouted to his men that he would teach this girl a lesson she would never forget! Throwing her onto a table, Sergei beat her savagely with his bare hands. Her skin blistered and peeled, eventually coming off in bloody strips in his hands. Yet, during the horrendous beating, she would not scream, even biting her own lip all the way through rather than emitting a sound.

Finally, Sergei’s fury was spent. He arrested the young pastor. He then pushed Natasha off the table onto the floor in a crumpled, bleeding heap. Their mission completed, Sergei and his men left the room.

Over the coming days, a growing sense of dissatisfaction began to gnaw at Sergei. First, there was the memory of the baptismal service raid. Next, there was seeing that Russian girl Natasha in yet another illegal service. But Sergei was convinced he would never see her again. She had been beaten too severely. The young woman would either die, go insane, or abandon forever all belief in this “imaginary” God.

A few weeks later, Sergei and five other men were called to make another raid. Only eight believers were reported to be there. By the time Sergei entered the room, his men were already delivering punishing, brutal blows on the believers. Then Sergei saw her. Once again, there was Natasha, bearing the permanent scar caused by her own teeth when she would not cry out.

For the first time in his life, Sergei was powerless to move.

Suddenly, Victor Matveyev, one of the cruelest men in Sergei’s group, jumped in front of the trembling girl and defiantly raised his club! The KGB squad member actually shielded Natasha from the blows of the others! He shouted, “This girl has something that we don’t have! Nobody touches her. NOBODY!”

Abruptly, the raid ended. Leaving the trembling Natasha in the room with the other bloodied believers lying on the floor, the stunned KGB members filed out. Bewildered by the behavior of their fellow squad member in defending the girl, somehow they all empathized with his strange decision and quietly left the house.

Sergei never forgot Natasha. His KGB career continued for several more weeks. Finally, one night, after raising his club to strike an old woman who was praying aloud for God to have mercy on these “young men” who were beating her, he felt someone grab his arm. Turning in fury to face this believer who had prevented his blow, Sergei saw no one. Yet his arm had been grabbed by an unseen hand!

He had been prevented from delivering the blow to this elderly lady who was praying for her persecutor. Stunned by this inexplicable act of an unseen Power, Sergei fled the house, tears streaming down his face for the first time in many years.

Upon his graduation from the naval academy, he asked for a break from KGB duties. Instead, he sought an assignment on a vessel cruising along the North American coast. In desperation to find Natasha’s God, Sergei Koudakov jumped overboard one dark night near the coast of Canada and swam to freedom. Once he was in the free world, he next sought to find some Christians. He was soon converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Sergei Kourdakov was granted asylum by the Canadian government. He traveled throughout Canada and the United States, speaking to all who would listen to his reports about persecuted believers behind the Iron Curtain. He spent the last months of his life trying to smuggle Bibles into Soviet Russia. The former persecutor of believers had himself joined the persecuted!

Sergei lived the remainder of his life aware that he was hunted by the Soviet government. His body was found one day; he had been shot dead. Sergei Kourdakov died at the young age of twenty-two.

He wrote these parting words in his autobiography:

Natasha, largely because of you, my life is now changed and
I am a fellow Believer in Christ with you. I have a new life
before me. God has forgiven me; I hope you can also.
Thank you, Natasha, wherever you are.
I will never, never forget you!

Many mysteries remain surrounding Sergei Kourdakov’s defection and death. The whole truth will probably not be known until we get to Heaven; however, the story of Sergei should motivate us to pray for all of our brothers and sisters who suffer persecution for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Sources and Further Reference:

Kourdakov, Sergei. The Persecutor. Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1973.