Sergei Kourdakov, a former KGB agent and Soviet naval intelligence officer, defected from the USSR at the age of twenty. A year later we met at my Federal Government office in Washington DC. We were watched and followed. “Even you could be spy,” Sergei whispered. My book, A Rose for Sergei, is the true story of our time together.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Never in My Wildest Dreams | Sergei Kourdakov


A search for independence and a career with the federal government led me on a journey that far surpassed any expectations.  I was twenty-one when I met Soviet KGB defector Sergei Kourdakov at my office in Washington D.C.  The moment we met, the immediate heated attraction surprised us both. ''Even you could be spy,'' he whispered.  How quickly I learned that love makes its own choices.  A Rose for Sergei chronicles my real-life relationship with Sergei Kourdakov—a man who gave up everything for freedom.

Sergei defected from the USSR in 1971, a year before we met.  One of his jobs with the Soviet Police was to break up meetings of Christian “believers.”  When he came to realize how wrong that was he planned his escape.  He barely survived the leap from the Soviet trawler Elagin and his treacherous swim toward freedom in Canada.  It was nothing short of a miracle.  (See September 28, 2015 post – The Nurse’s Diary)

There were times when Sergei and I were together that I felt like we were in a movie.  It didn’t seem real…Sergei was always looking over his shoulder, watching for “them.”  Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would meet, let alone date, a KGB defector.

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A Rose for Sergei can be purchased online from:

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