Biography
Vladimir Piskarev is one of three civilians in Oryol who ended up behind bars because of their faith in Jehovah God in December 2020. The pre-trial detention center in which believers were placed, once known as the Oryol Central, is one of the oldest institutions in the Russian penal system. At one time, political prisoners of the Stalinist regime were placed there, so a monument to the victims of political repression was erected there. About 3 years later, Vladimir was sentenced to 6 years in a penal colony for his beliefs.
Vladimir was born in 1956 in the city of Karpinsk (Sverdlovsk region). He has a younger brother. Their mother and father are no longer alive. As a child, the boy was fond of music, played the button accordion. He was also a radio amateur, collected stamps, skied and skates, was engaged in wood carving and painting.
After school, Vladimir graduated from a technical school, where he received the profession of an electromechanic. He worked as an electrician, signalman, power engineer, engineer. He is now retired.
In 1976, Vladimir married Tatyana, who was also prosecuted for faith about a year after Vladimir was taken into custody. The couple raised two children—a son and a daughter. When the children lived with them, they loved to go to the forest with the whole family to pick mushrooms, as well as visit the theater. In 1990, the family moved from Stary Oskol (Belgorod region) to the Caucasus, closer to their parents. They lived there for 10 years, and later settled in Oryol.
Vladimir loves justice and honesty. He wanted to find decent people living according to the commandments of Jesus Christ. Having met Jehovah's Witnesses in the early 1990s, he eventually made a decision to become a Christian too, which he did in 1995.
The criminal prosecution was a serious shock. Behind bars Vladimir had an acute attack of gallbladder disease, due to which he was hospitalized. There he also repeatedly suffered hypertensive crises and stroke. Piskarev said: "Why did this happen? Because in the pre-trial detention center they simply did not give me medicines, although they were there. The medications were given by my beloved wife, because I had to take them literally every day. Even when they started giving it out, they gave me literally one or two pills a week." The believer was released in April 2025, having served his sentence in full.