Mokryna Yurzuk & Luigi Pedutto

Mokryna and Luigi’s love story began in 1943 in a concentration camp in Austria. Mokryna was from Ukraine and Luigi was from Italy. After the World War II, Mokryna wasn’t allowed to travel to Italy and Luigi wasn’t allowed to go to Ukraine, so lovers were seperated by geographical distance and unfortunately lost touch. But, although they both moved on with their lives and married different people, they kept a fond and long lasting memory of each other. Many years later, after both of them were already widowed, Luigi finally found Mokryna in 2004 through TV show „Wait for me“ that was filmed in Moscow. United again, they started to see each other from time to time and Luigi asked Mokryna to marry him, but she refused his propopsal due to old age and different countries they lived in. Luigi died in 2013 and Mokryna died two years later. Sculptors Oleksandr Morhatsky and Hryhoriy Kostiukov immortalized those two lovers in a monument, which was erected in Mariinsky Park in Kiev, near the „lovers’ bridge“. Copy of the sculpture was erected in 2017 in Castel San Lorenzo, Luigi’s hometown.