VINS

Georgi Petrovich Vins (Russian: Георгий Петрович Винс; August 4, 1928 Blagoveshchensk, Russian SFSR – January 11, 1998 Elkhart, Indiana) was a Russian Baptist pastor persecuted by the Soviet authorities for his involvement in a network of independent Baptist churches. Following an agreement between Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and U.S. President Jimmy Carter, Vins and his family were expelled from the Soviet Union in 1979 with a group of other dissidents (Alexander Ginzburg, Eduard Kuznetsov, Mark Dymshits and Valentin Moroz) in exchange for two convicted spies, Rudolf Chernyaev and Valdik Enger.