[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

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