Biography
Maksim Khamatshin, a young family man and electrician, became a victim of criminal prosecution for his faith in the summer of 2023.
Maksim was born in June 1996 in Siberia, in the city of Biryusinsk (Irkutsk region), in the family of a physician and a railway worker. As a child, he loved to play football. For a long time he was engaged in skiing, was fond of collecting postage stamps.
After school, Maksim graduated from the Kansk Polytechnic College and received a specialty as an adjuster of instrumentation and automation. He worked at a brick factory. Recently, he has been working as an electrician as a self-employed.
The Bible norms instilled by his mother touched Maksim's heart, and in his teenage years he began to study the Bible deeply on his own. "It was bitter for me to see people suffer," Maksim recalls. "But I learned from the Bible how God will make people's lives easier."
Peaceful views prompted Maksim to undergo alternative civilian service (ACS) instead of military service—he worked as an orderly in the operating unit of the Chelyabinsk Regional Hospital from 2017 to 2019.
Here, in Chelyabinsk, Maksim met his future wife, Adelina, and in August 2019 they got married. His wife shares his views on life. She has been familiar with Bible teachings since childhood. Adelina works as a pharmacist. The couple has many common hobbies: they love to spend time with friends, play board games, have picnics in nature, sing songs. Maksim also still goes in for sports, loves football, volleyball, skiing, and is also fond of studying construction technologies.
The criminal prosecution affected both spouses—they no longer feel safe in their own apartment. Parents and other relatives consider the persecution unfair. Maksim's mother's chronic illness worsened due to her worries.
Maksim and Adelina do not lose heart: "We felt the great support and love of our friends."