• Russia
    2008 Yearbook of Jehovah’s Witnesses

    • In 1989 several thousand Witnesses from the Soviet Union were able to attend the special convention in Poland. Yevdokia, a Witness from the city of Naberezhnye Chelny, recalls: “We fervently prayed to Jehovah that we would be able to attend our first real convention. The director of the business I worked for, having heard that I wanted to leave the country, exclaimed: ‘What! Don’t you watch television? The border is closed, and they are not letting anyone through!’

      “With full confidence, I replied, ‘The border will open.’ That is just how things turned out. At the customs checkpoint at Brest, only Jehovah’s Witnesses were allowed through. We were not even searched, and all of us were treated courteously. One non-Witness tried to pass himself off as a convention delegate and slip through with us. However, the customs officials quickly discovered and detained him. How did they know? The convention delegates all had bright smiles on their faces and held only small bags in their hands.”