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RegisterOnce the town of Halifax celebrates Pride, simply over about ten years ago Elena Ivanova ended up being anything that is doing. Dating a person, also she felt wasn’t her own though she liked women, and living a life. It took a voice that is canadian her to make a journey over the ocean to “freedom. ”
Ivanova came to be in Ivanovo, nearly 300 kilometers northeast of Moscow. Known when because the “City of Brides” due to its then textile that is large-scale, business has since diminished after the autumn of this USSR. Ivanova went along to school within the city to master architecture and started working at a huge architectural and design solutions company alongside her mother during the chronilogical age of 24.
Her dating a woman was something she still couldn’t pursue primarily due to family pressure though it was years before Russia’s ban on gay “propaganda”, Ivanova said.
“It absolutely works, after all I became willing to destroy my life to complete whatever my family relations desired me to accomplish just to satisfy them, ” she stated in a job interview with worldwide News.
In the time her mom along with other household members had been asking her why she wasn’t dating and expected her to alternatively develop into a “housewife, ” she said.
Her mother pressed her into using heels and dresses and changing whom she had been. She stated at one point her mother noticed a guy, called Dima, who arrived to operate and told Ivanova she should begin dating him before an other woman did.
She did for eight months, nonetheless it had been “the time that is worst within my life i might state. ”
For this time, Ivanova began speaking with a female known as Meg Stone from Canada on an on-line dating website. She states they weren’t on the website shopping for dates, rock desired to discover Russian while Ivanova had been wanting a getaway from her life.
Fulfilling Stone, she stated, ended up being the possibility in turn, learned more info on the lady who she says was “so big. On her behalf to be by herself and she”
Elena Ivanova, left, meets Meg at Boryspil airport Elena Ivanova
And Ivanova discovered Stone, now just over 50, passed her power onto her prompting her to travel to Ukraine and fulfill her Canadian friend at Boryspil Airport in Kyiv, the main city city.
She says that’s when she thinks her life began when they met.
“I think very nearly I am able to count my life that is real from point on. Before like I was asleep. It almost seems”
Nevertheless the begin of her new lease of life, she claims, very nearly ended the moment it started. After fulfilling rock, she allow her mom know there is a page inside her desk explaining her relationship with rock, being released to her moms and dads for the reason that note, and it also prompted her mom, her buddies and her boyfriend to call her many times urging her to come back. She didn’t.
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Her escape to Canada, nevertheless, stumbled on a realization after an encounter along with her family members in Kyiv. Her mom had spoken with Ivanova, telling her she had been coming to generally meet rock in Kyiv but exactly what was said to be a conference converted into both her moms and dads looking to get her to come back to Russia.
“The concept would be to kidnap me personally and back drag me to Ivanovo, ” Ivanova said.
The now 38-year-old told rock to go back for their apartment in an effort “to save her” as she ended up being delivered to a McDonald’s.
“They barricaded me with all the tables, they might perhaps not permit me to get anywhere, ” she explained.
She then phoned rock and explained exactly what occurred, leading rock to reach in the restaurant and after “fighting” the four of these had been removed from the restaurant my lol free app by safety and taken to law enforcement place. Following questioning by authorities, Ivanova said police released them and Ivanova had not been obligated to get back along with her moms and dads to Russia though she is said by her moms and dads left Ukraine with her passport.
The set recognized they had a need to arrive at Canada, but with out a passport, visited the Canadian consulate in Kyiv. She stated the consul provided to help but could just offer a safe spot. They informed her she could request security if on Canadian soil, but to have here she would want her passport in order to get a visa.
Through efforts of the close buddy in Russia, Ivanova managed to regain her passport as well as the couple left for Turkey hoping of shopping for a watercraft and making their method over the ocean. Throughout their stay that is two-month in nation, she discovered to sail so they really both will make their method throughout the seas.
“Otherwise we’d hugely be endangering our everyday everyday lives, ” she stated.
Elena Ivanova, appropriate, learns just how to sail from an trainer. Elena Ivanova
Ivanova and rock purchased a 14-metre yacht, and lay out in the water in June 2006.
The journey had not been effortless, they trekked throughout the mediterranean and beyond, made their method by way of a hurricane into the Atlantic Ocean, journeyed in to the Pacific through the Caribbean Sea and Panama Canal, before arriving at land in Victoria in 2007 april.
The Atlantic Ocean following a hurricane while Elena Ivanova and Meg are sailing the waters. Elena Ivanova
Ever since then, the set were utilizing their motorboat to visit the seas. Stone’s house must be offered as a result of the price of the visit to Canada from Turkey, and she currently works as a programmer. Ivanova claims she attempted to find act as a designer but had been not able to do this, and alternatively composed book in Russian to inform the tale of the journey called “Talking towards the Moon”, and hopes their tale helps other folks, specially ladies.
“I would like to enable females to take back once again their life. I’d like them become pleased, truly pleased, I would like them to smile, to do crazy things, become strong, ” she stated.
The couple found Halifax this last weekend and attended Halifax Pride, which she said they really discovered by accident on noticing Pride flags and had been told by some individuals that the occasions were occurring.
Elena Ivanova and Meg in Halifax in 2017 july. Elena Ivanova
Expected just how she feels since going to Canada, Ivanova stated she’s happy.
“I’m entirely various person at this time. I’m happy. Personally I think great. Personally I think liberated in a lot of methods that We can’t count all of them. There’s no relative straight straight back for me personally. I’ve become finally where i usually desired to be. ”