Aħfirli Natasha is an autobiography dealing with the short but eventful life of Sergei Kourdakov. Forgive me, Natasha was previously published under two different titles, Sergei and The Persecutor.

Sergei Kourdakov was born in Russia in 1951; he lost both parents by the time he was four. He was invited to live with a family who had known his mother, and it was there that he learned to read and count. Two years later he escaped and spent several days roaming the streets of Novosibirsk, until he was caught by the police and sent to an orphanage. There he was moulded by the Communist system and ideology.

Sergei was intelligent, athletic and ambitious; this helped him to overcome many hurdles in life. He joined the Communist Union of Youth, cultivated a great interest in the ideologies of Marx and Lenin, and soon became leader of his section. Sergei recounts many adventures which he and his friends were involved in. Many of his mates became criminals, and there were times when he too gave them a hand in their shady business. After graduating school, Kourdakov was accepted in the Naval Academy in Leningrad, and later he continued his studies at Petropavlovsk Naval Academy in Kamchatka.

In 1969, Sergei was approached by a KGB official who offered to put him in charge of a special-action squad; money was no problem. Sergei accepted, and together with other youths, he led vicious attacks on Christian believers, those who he believed were enemies of the state.

It was the courage of Natasha Zhdanova, one of his victims that brought him to his senses and led him to defect to the West in search of the Christian God.

His dramatic and risky defection from a Russian ship and the start of a new life in Canada make for a worthy climax.

A Horizons Publication - 2015; 294 p.  

Translated into Maltese by Paul Callus