Biography
In May 2023, during a raid on peaceful believers in Novocheboksarsk, one of Jehovah's Witnesses Yuriy Yuskov, 85, learned that a criminal case had been initiated against him for his religious views.
Yuriy was born in 1938 in the village of Selivanovskaya, Rostov Region. His father died at the frontline in 1942, and his mother died in 2012. Yuriy's sister died as a child.
As a child, Yuriy loved to fish and build dams in the streams. He graduated from a six-year boarding school. After returning from the army in 1960, he studied for another two years at a school for working youth in the city of Norilsk.
Yuriy worked in Norilsk at a mechanical plant as a bender-roller of cold and hot rolled products, then in a quarry as an assistant driver of an electric locomotive, then as a welder and driver of vehicles for various purposes. In his past time, Yuriy loves hiking in nature.
When he was talking about how he got to know the Bible, Yuriy recalled: “I was convinced that this wise book had truth in it, and I decided to live according to Christian norms and principles.” This happened in 1999. The wife, Lyudmila, did not share her husband's religious beliefs, but was not against them either. In 1963, the couple had a son, Yuriy, who was the first in the family to begin studying the Bible. Lyudmila passed away in 2019.
The criminal prosecution had a negative impact on the emotional state of the elderly believer, but he is firm in his convictions. Relatives and friends worry about Yuriy, since they don't understand how they can persecute such an honest and kind person.