MOSCOW YEARS

Mikhail Sergeev was born in 1960 in Moscow, Russia (USSR), to a Soviet middle-class intelligentsia family. His father, Yuri Sergeev, worked as an international journalist and spent many years in Africa as a bureau chief of the Soviet News Press Agency (Agentstvo Pechati Novosti). His mother, Nelly Sergeeva, worked as a choir-conductor and music teacher at school.

Mikhail Sergeev's father came from an Orthodox Christian background and his mother from an Orthodox Jewish family (her maiden name was Rikhtman). Mikhail himself, 

however, was raised in a secular cultural environment. During his university studies in the Soviet Union, he took several courses in religion and philosophy. One of them about the history of religions was called "Scientific Atheism," and classes in contemporary philosophy were mostly about Marxism-Leninism and spent little time discussing "bourgeois" philosophical thought.

After graduating in 1982, Mikhail worked as a correspondent and feature columnist in the weekly illustrated magazine Sobesednik [Interlocutor]. In 1987 he took a different job as a manager and public relations specialist at the Moscow theatre-studio Arlekin. A few years afterward, he went on a business trip to the United States, and one of his friends asked him to find out how to apply to the departments of philosophy in American universities.

While in Philadelphia, he came to Temple University and found out about the department of religious studies. Intrigued by the department's name, which did not exclusively focus on Christian theology or secular philosophy, Mikhail introduced himself to one of its members who turned out to be the chairman. After a two-hour conversation in which Mikhail regretted his lack of religious and philosophical education in the Soviet Union and his deep personal interest in those subject matters, the chairman suggested that he apply to the graduate program.

In April of 1990, Mikhail was accepted and given enough financial aid to travel to the United States. On December 26 of the same year, he and his family were about to cross the border. Still, they were stopped by an American custom representative who told Mikhail that his family lacks a particular permission form, which prevents him from granting the American visas. Then the worker opened the passport of Mikhail Sergeev's wife, who was born on December 25, and exclaimed: "Oh, Christmas baby! Welcome to America!" And he stamped their passports with the approval to enter the country.

Since then, Mikhail, his wife Alyona, and their son Dmitry reside in the United States. They settled in Philadelphia.