[From Prof. Dr. Alexander Dvorkin, forwarded with permission]

In Memoriam of Ilia Rakhmanov

His name says nothing to you. He was a mere boy, 21 years old. Ilia lived in a provincial Russian town of Saransk, about 600 km east of Moscow.

He was a former scientologist, who left the cult about three years ago. Since then he had created a very good antiscientological web site (www.entheta.ru) and had supported it. He conducted a very active and fruitful internet polemics against scientologists and other cultists. About half a year ago he had created his second site (http://www.entheta.ru/synton) � against �Sinton� a popular Russian psychocult created by Nikolai Kozlov, who modeled it partially after scientology (Kozlov has gone through several scientological courses and auditing sessions). Local Saransk �Sinton� has started a court process against Ilia.

He was all alone in his town. He was �fair gamed� by the scientologists. He never came to faith in God, and it was his tragedy.

I know almost nothing about him � we�ve just have exchanged several letters. He asked me for a permission to use my materials, I gave this permission. Several letters like that. I just knew that in Saransk there was a colleague, who was doing a good job.

Last Friday, October 15 Ilia has announced on several Internet forums that he wants to leave this life. I found his home phone number and tried to call him several times. There was no answer� Only next day an answer came. It was his father. My call came too late� Ilia was very lonely. He hated totalitarianism, lie and hypocrisy. And he attempted to fight them. All alone. He had put upon himself too heavy a burden, and it has broken him. His life was very short, and his end was terrible. None of you knew the name of this boy. Now you know it. Think for a moment of the tragedy of Ilia Rakmanov. He was our colleague who was trying to help others.

Ilia is survived by his parents and five siblings. I will save both of his sites and will keep them open under his name.

Alexander L. Dvorkin

Go Back