Biography
The wife and children of Gennadiy Solomentsev did not expect that a peaceful pensioner would be prosecuted because of his religious beliefs. The believer said: “I couldn’t understand how it was possible to come to peaceful people with children in such a crowd with machine guns . . . Everything fell at the same time: our whole family had been ill with COVID-19, I was in a covid hospital. There is no strength after the illness, my hands are shaking. And you need to go again several hundred kilometers for interrogation in Sharypovo.
Gennadiy was born in November 1949 in the village of Bolshoi Izyrak, Novosibirsk Region, into a large family—he had two elder brothers and a sister. One of the brothers taught Gennadiy to fish and since then fishing has become his hobby. His father was the head of a mechanized detachment, and his mother was engaged in farming. Parents, brothers and sisters of Gennadiy are no longer alive.
After school, Gennadiy went to Novosibirsk, where he graduated from the electrical school. Later, he took courses and got a job as a driver in the village of Maslyanino (Novosibirsk region). After moving to Sharypovo (Krasnoyarsk Territory), for some time he worked as an electrician. In 2010, Gennadiy retired.
In 1973, Gennadiy married Nadezhda. She has been a nurse all her life and is now retired. Having gone on a well-deserved rest, Gennadiy became interested in construction—he gradually equipped a country house, and Nadezhda was engaged in a garden.
The couple raised three children. The daughter works as a technologist at a sewing enterprise, the sons work in the field of cargo transportation. For health reasons, Gennadiy and Nadezhda decided to move from the Krasnoyarsk Territory closer to the children who live in Novosibirsk.
“Even in my youth, I had a dream to read the Bible,” says Gennadiy, “but in Soviet times it was impossible to get it. In the 1990s, many different religions appeared, and I wanted to figure out which one was correct. So I wanted to read the Bible myself.” In 1995, Gennadiy began to research this book, and a year later he decided to take the Christian path. His wife, daughter and eldest son share his religious views.
Because of the search, the Solomentsevs experienced severe stress. “This situation outraged all the relatives,” said the believer.