Out of the swirling snow of a Moscow winter morning last week, 32 shabby peasants suddenly appeared at the iron gates of the U.S. embassy at 19/21 Tchaikovsky Street, brushed past the Russian guards on the sidewalk, and strode inside. To flabbergasted American diplomats they put a startling request: Help us get out of Russia.
The six men, twelve women and 14 children clad in tattered sheepskin coats and babushkas were a forlorn lot with a forlorn tale. They came from a sect of Protestant Pentecostal evangelists in the Siberian town of Chernogorsk, near the Mongolian border 2,100 miles to the east....