Pyotr Patrushev was the only escapee to survive a swim from Russia to Turkey across the Black Sea border in June 1962. In the West he became a broadcaster, journalist and translator, working for the BBC in London and later for Radio Liberty in Munich and San Francisco.
After settling in Australia he wrote for Australian newspapers, radio and television. His memoir Sentenced to Death, published by the Publishing House Neva in St. Petersburg in August 2005, describes the author's childhood in Siberia, his incarceration in a Soviet psychiatric prison, his swim to Turkey, detention by the Turkish authorities, 25 years on the KGB's wanted list on charges of 'high treason', life in Australia, England, Germany, and the USA, and finally, after thirty years in exile, his return to Russia to visit his family. Another book by Pyotr Patrushev, Project Nirvana, was published by BookSurge Publishing (USA) in 2005.
Patrushev has worked as a technical and literary translator.
