Biography
In March 2023, Anastasiya Dyldina, a fourth-generation Jehovah's Witness, was prosecuted for her religious beliefs.
Anastasiya was born in 1999 in Moscow in the family of a military man and a doctor. At that time, her father studied in the capital. A year later, the family returned to their hometown Vladivostok. In 2018, her parents divorced.
As a child, Anastasiya was versatile: she did gymnastics, liked drawing and playing chess, and graduated from a music school. On graduating from secondary school, she received a gold medal and then entered medical university to study medical biochemistry. When the criminal case was initiated against her, she was in her 6th year and was preparing to defend her diploma and moonlighting as an English teacher in a children's center.
In her spare time, Anastasiya loves to sing and play the ukulele – small Hawaiian guitar. She also likes photography and loves traveling with her friends.
Anastasiya believed in God from childhood and developed a love for him. Her grandmother told her about God's wonderful qualities, and also read Bible stories to her, bringing to life fascinating and instructive stories in her imagination. She taught her to develop good qualities that would be useful to her in adulthood, especially in difficult circumstances. Anastasiya grew up and her confidence in the existence of the Creator was reinforced by what she learned about how complex living organisms are. In 2018, she became one of Jehovah's Witnesses. Her mother, like her grandmother, shares her views on life.
Anastasiya has always lived in Vladivostok, but she planned to move after graduation. The criminal prosecution disrupted these plans. Relatives, especially her father, are worried about her and consider this prosecution unreasonable.