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Kiev - The statue to the longest love affairs in history

The statue of Italian prisoner of war Luigi Pedutto and an Ukrainian forced labourer Mokryna Yurzuk was erected in a park next to the “lovers' bridge” downtown Kyiv, Ukraine. There is a statue in Kyiv dedicated to the longest love affairs in history – and certainly one with the most inauspicious beginnings, starting as it did in a concentration camp more than 70 years ago in Austria.An Italian prisoner of war Luigi Pedutto met a Ukrainian forced labourer Mokryna Yurzuk with a young daughter born in the Nazi camp near the town of Sankt Pölten, northeastern Austria. They fell in love, but after the camp was liberated in 1945, they were separated.Pedutto worked as a financier in Italy and Yurzuk as a collective farmer in a soviet Ukraine. Both married and had children, but never forgot their wartime love. The two were reunited in 2004, thanks to a TV show “I’m Waiting for You”, which helps those who have been separated to find each other. The statue “Love Story” of Luigi and Mokryna dedicated to ever-lasting love was erected in Kyiv, in a park near the so-called "lovers' bridge", a popular destination for people to confess their love to one another. (Photo by Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto)

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