The First Online Service 

It was a true technological breakthrough. Hundreds of people gathered on the Red Square first but a crowd of protestors made it unsafe, and the event moved to the Ostankin Tower. Our pastor Rev. Dr. Lydia Istomina was the very first woman pastor in Russia. She founded the First United Methodist Church in Sverdlovsk (Yekaterinburg) in 1990 and became instrumental in the very first humanitarian airlift. The First Lady of Russia Naina Yeltsina helped Lydia to get the largest military airplane Ruslan AN-124 for the mission