For many years I didn’t know how to talk about the cult. On one hand, it seemed to contain something great, brilliant and necessary for all humanity. On the other hand, there was a constant whisper inside me that no, something wasn’t right… Until I had a daughter, I attributed this vague misgiving to ignorance; it was more convenient to think I was simply not intelligent enough to understand the full depth and true meaning of what went on. But then my daughter was born, and when she reached the age at which I entered the cult, I suddenly, and to my own surprise, completely revised my attitude to what had gone on there and to the people connected with it.

It must be said that my husband understood from the second sentence of my story that I had been in a cult. I needed almost 40 years.

WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK

I want to tell you about my experience and how my way of thinking has changed. How at first I was delighted with the ideas promoted by the cult of Viktor Davydovich Stolbun, and how then I realised what was really behind them.

My story is about at what price a person learns to think, not so much critically as independently. It is not difficult to criticise, but the ability to find the best solutions requires not only a good education, but also a lot of courage.

This is a story about how much ignorance costs us. It is about how not to bring up children. It is about what happens in the soul and psyche of a small child.

I want to tell the truth, the truth about a cult that did not disappear with the collapse of the USSR, that larger “cult” which had made it all possible. I want to tell the truth, as true as any memory or life experience can be.

This book is not fiction. It contains only facts from the childhood I spent in a cult.

For many years I held an internal discussion about whether it was worth publishing this truth. I kept expecting one of the “adults” would do it – after all, I was a child when I was there. But no one came forward, and the cult continues to exist to this day in the very centre of Moscow. Even in Switzerland, where I now live, there are followers of Stolbun’s “teachings”.

Now it is headed by another person, Vladimir Vladimirovich Streltsov, the son of Stolbun’s wife, and its members actively promote themselves on Russian social networks and continue to attract new clients. Previously, they “treated” mainly alcoholism, drug addiction and schizophrenia, but now they also say they treat tuberculosis.

There is a lot of information on the Internet, but it is scattered and sometimes fundamentally incorrect. I decided to collect between the covers of one book what I know myself, using people’s real names.

WHO THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN FOR

For my husband, to tell him the story of my childhood, which differs significantly from his own. People say things like: Europeans are so pampered, they are completely unaware of the hardships of life. They say: there’s no point even trying to tell them, they still won’t understand. I disagree. It probably depends on the person. It’s possible to be pampered and never face the problems I did, and at the same time remain a person with not only curiosity but also a big heart – a heart with enough space for both my stories and the feelings associated with them… Might this attitude even be the expression of true love?

For my daughter, for her to know the conditions in which her mother grew up and developed as a person, and thereby better understand me.

She said recently,