Hare Krishna movement in Russia

[Guest guest]

The following moving video footage is from 1988 when

25 Hare Krishna devotees were in Soviet prisons for

the " heinous crime " of chanting Hare Krishna. The

Hare Krishna children in Australia made an appeal to

the soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to please

release the Soviet Hare Krishnas:

 

http://www.hkussr.com/website/cg026childrenofkrishna88.wmv

 

 

The following brief history how the seed of Krishna

consciousness was planted on Russian soil is told by

the Russian devotees:

 

During the eleven years of his preaching in the West,

Srila Prabhupada [Founder Acarya for the International

Society for Krishna Consciousness, ISKCON] traveled

around the world fourteen times. Among other countries

he also visited Soviet Russia which at that time was

behind the Iron Curtain. The four days visit of Srila

Prabhupada to Moscow in 1971 miraculously brought many

changes to that country of atheism.

 

 

 

http://www.backtohome.com/images/Spring_2007/sp_in_moscow.jpg

 

During his visit he discussed philosophy with Prof.

Kotovsky, a Soviet scholar of Hinduism, but most

significantly met with one young, educated Russian boy

who later became his first and only initiated disciple

from the Soviet Union, Ananda Shanti. This Russian boy

single-handedly started preaching the eternal message

of Bhagavad-Gita, and in this way the teachings of

Srila Prabhupada became known to the hundreds and

hundreds of Soviet people, so much so that in the

beginning of the 1980's the KGB declared ISKCON one of

the greatest threats to the Soviet nation. In this

way, the war was declared............the war of the

totalitarian state against the handful of first

devotees of Krishna in Soviet Russia.

 

The KGB started massive persecution campaigns against

the first followers of ISKCON. For their belief,

around hundred of the first Russian devotees were

thrown into prisons, labor camps and psychiatric

hospitals. They underwent tremendous sufferings and

tortures, but kept their strong, unflinching faith in

Lord Krishna and His words in Bhagavad-Gita.

 

One of them, Sarkis Ohanjanyan was only 21 when he was

put in prison. His only " guilt " was that he believed

in God, chanted the Hare Krishna mahamantra and

refused to eat meat. One and a half years later he

died in the winter of 1986 in a labor camp out of

malnutrition and tuberculosis. Before departure he was

chanting on the beads made from the prison bread, and

had applied tilaka on his body with the toothpaste.

 

Olga Kiselyova was put in prison in 1983 when she was

pregnant. Her " crime " was that she helped in

translating the Bhagavad-Gita into the Russian

language. After undergoing tortures and long, arduous

interrogations she delivered a baby girl Marika in

prison who died only two months later.

 

Amala Bhakta Das father of 5, was sentenced for 5

years of labor camps, and was only released on the

personal plea from Nancy Reagan.

 

These are only a few stories among many. Early

devotees in Russia sacrificed their health, freedom

and sometimes even life for the preaching and for the

service to Srila Prabhupada.

 

Hare Krishna devotees around the world started a

campaign of protest against religious persecution in

the USSR. As a result, in 1988 all Soviet Hare Krishna

devotees were released by Mr. M. Gorbachev and the new

era of religious freedom in Russia had begun. [end

of narration]