Once upon a time, I lived in Kakhovka, a beautiful cozy green town in the south of Ukraine. One of those small, once-upon-a-time places where everyone on the street knows exactly who you are – who is your mother, who is your grandmother and which school you study in.
Today, the view from my hotel tower suite in the megacity of Delhi, India could not be more different!
During the first 20 years of my life, in the 1980s and 1990s, I experienced so many different extremes: how to live in the Soviet Union, how to learn poems about Lenin, five different national currency changes, an economic collapse, poverty, and hunger. I remember my mother selling a gold ring to get money for bread, due to her salary being delayed for at least three months. I had studied in Russian at school, then my psychology degree lectures at university were in Ukrainian. Looking back now, it’s now wonder I felt so mature at 18 years old that I became a wife and mother! After five years of marriage, however, I happily divorced and moved to the capital city of Kyiv to look for better job opportunities to support myself and my daughter.
I had always hoped to travel and see the world someday. In my dreams, however, I could only visualize myself doing it with a fellow Ukrainian, a man who speaks my language and shares my mentality. But the gods listen to our plans and laugh at them — so here I am! Living in a Delhi hotel, deeply in love with an Italian man for the past 15 years, having followed him across three different countries on his culinary career path.
Flying high for a first date
Our love story — and my trailing-spouse journey — started in 2009, via an online dating site. I received the first message from him on Nov. 26, and a few months later, I decided to obtain a tourist visa to visit New Delhi from Kyiv for my first date with Alessandro Sandrolini, who had recently joined the Hyatt Regency Delhi as a chef at the hotel’s Italian restaurant.
Reality turned out to be even better than our connection online. In 2010, after nearly a year together, he invited my family for a Christmas vacation to get to know them and ask my mother for my hand in marriage. I’m sorry to disappoint you, dear readers, but there was not even one single little drama. My family – my mother, my sister, my daughter Oleksandra – and my husband loved each other from the first sight and this love still continues, 15 years later.
In 2011, we got married at the Italian Embassy in New Delhi and I officially became a Delhi resident rather than a tourist. According to the Gupte Scale, my relocation ranked a perfect 15/15 — excellent timing, destination, and resources. We had a lovely apartment in Delhi’s Green Park neighborhood, help around the house and food delivery from our favorite restaurants… I was living my best life.
I quickly fell in love with India. Maybe because this is the place where I met the love of my life, or because India and I are very alike. We are both very loud, full of life, full of colors, a bit crazy and chaotic — but also kind, supportive and understanding that happiness hides itself in the little things.
The end of our honeymoon
After I got pregnant, my husband’s contract at the Hyatt Regency Delhi ended. He moved on to work as the executive sous-chef at Park Hyatt in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and I returned to my mom in Ukraine until our daughter’s birth in 2013. My husband came right before my due date and stayed with me to share this whole experience. He also fell in love with my hometown and decided that we would move there after retiring. Just imagine how charming it must have seemed, for an Italian to choose to spend the rest of his life in Kakhovka over all of Italy’s charms!
Saudi Arabia was not an easy country to enter in those days, but after going through a very complicated bureaucratic process, our 11-month-old baby and I landed in Jeddah in March 2014. Meanwhile, my older daughter was finishing middle school and music school back in Ukraine. I don’t want to talk a lot about my experience in that country – let’s just say that I could not even come out of the plane without wearing an abaya, a long loose cloak-like dress with long sleeves that is worn on top of your clothes. Most women around me wear it in the traditional black color, but after one year of living there, I felt rebellious and bought one blue and one beige abaya. Fortunately, my friends there have since told me that some things have changed there, and women have more choices than before.
Restrictions, strict rules, no freedom, no opportunity for women to even call a taxi or use public transportation. Everything seemed like a challenge, which did not sit right with such an independent spirit like me. On the Gupte Scale, it felt like a dismal 3/15.
Resuming the fairy tale
Someone from above must have heard me. In 2016, after living there for two years (and my husband for three), we were able to return to Delhi, India to the same hotel — but in a higher position. Our fairy tale continued, but this time it was even better, because Oleksandra, my daughter from my previous marriage, was able to join us and continue her high school education at The British School. Through this school, I met many interesting people and made new friends.
Just when I thought that this would be my life forever, somewhere far away on the Italian island of Murano, a new Hyatt Hotel was about to open – and the Hyatt headquarters decided they could not do without my husband there. (Well, I cannot blame them; he is a wonderful chef who is hard-working, passionate and dedicated to his job!)
And this is how in 2019, we moved to one of the most attractive tourist destinations on the planet: Venice. Even though it was in my husband’s homeland, however, we faced so many problems, from finding an apartment to 2-year wait for a stay permit for me and my older daughter, since we weren’t Italian. We were placed on a waiting list, which gave us a right to stay in the country, but no permission to travel abroad or use the government clinic at the local price.
If you already did your math, however, you know what happened next: the COVID-19 lockdown, which was very strict in Italy. The Murano Hyatt Centric was forced to close overnight without any hope of reopening. They sent all the staff, including my husband, to stay at home “until further notice” that never came.
To provide for our family, my husband accepted a single contract to go work as a Head Chef at Alila Hinu Bay in Salalah, Oman. I stayed in Italy with both children, trying to manage our existence. And once I think we managed it and nothing worse could happen? Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 and the war broke out.
Technically, I was safe in Italy. But, I was born in the south of Ukraine, in territory that has been occupied by Russia from the first day of the invasion. My mother and sister ran away with only a backpack to save their lives. And where could they go? To me in my apartment in Venice. I also took in a Ukrainian friend with a little girl, and we ended up with seven women and girls in one apartment. (Sorry, but the Gupte Scale stopped working here entirely!) This is how – against my will – I became familiar with all of the bureaucratic system in Italy even more than before.
Answered prayers
Do you know what happened next? You will never believe me! The Indian gods heard my prayers again — with a work contract back to Delhi in October 2022. Of course, we grabbed the opportunity, and now we are back to the place that, against the odds, feels like home. This time, my family has a new experience of living in a suite at Hyatt Regency Delhi.
Life in a hotel feels like you are always on vacation, but at the end of the day, there are no bills to pay. Plus, we get to enjoy living in a place with five restaurants, gym, sauna, dry cleaning and room service as a bonus. A perfect 15/15 on the Gupte Scale!
Back in Italy, my Ukrainian friend Viktoria has managed to stay in Venice through a refugee program, and found a job; her daughter speaks Italian fluently and plans to start first grade at an Italian school this fall.
My mother and my sister love our homeland so much, they have returned to Ukraine – even though they do not have a house or a place to go back to. My mom was lucky to find an opportunity to live in a friend’s apartment and take care of her friend’s cat in Kyiv; my sister wanted to serve her country and has joined the Ukrainian army.
Happily ever after, for now
I am writing this article while looking through the window on the busy roads of Bhikaji Cama Place from the 7th floor of the Hyatt Hotel. The cars’ honking can be heard all the way from here – and you know what? I love it. Italian roads sound so crazily quiet and polite in comparison, moving in such an annoyingly organized fashion.
Work-wise, I am a freelance-book editor for a Ukrainian online culinary company — a job that takes a lot of time and energy, but lets me support Ukrainian animal shelters, the recovery centres for the injured soldiers and families in need. I am also a volunteer administrator of one of the oldest expat social support clubs, The Delhi Network. Every Tuesday, we meet for a fabulous coffee morning at the Hyatt Regency Delhi: great coffee, good food, amazing company – everybody is welcome. I met so many interesting people there: some are trailing spouses, some of them work here, some of them are married to Indian men, some of them stay here independently etc. and I am very grateful for this. Also, I became an ambassador for the Internationals, another expat global community that is responsible for organizing various events. My newest hobbies are to play darts competitively, study Hindi and Indian culture, practice yoga, and play a card game called “Canasta” with my friends and my family.
My older daughter Oleksandra visited us in Delhi for a family Christmas in 2022 and decided to stay for a while, after finding her calling in a filmmaking course at O.P. Jindal Global University in Sonipat. She even shot her first short film, “Hopscotch,” which features my younger daughter Alessandra (who recently finished 6th grade at Apeejay International School) as the protagonist. And I am so proud of both of them. So we are hoping to stay in Delhi until she finishes her degree. My husband has been dreaming about staying in Japan and China for a long time, while I would like to see Australia and New Zealand.
As a writer, I can write a dozen books about the last 15 years of my life. And I’m sure that it could turn into an interesting Netflix show based on those stories. It’s not always easy to be a trailing spouse: as you can see, we faced a lot of separations and challenges, but I wouldn’t change a thing. It is my destiny to be his wife and I enjoy it every day. I have three pieces of advice for other trailing spouses, based on my experience:
- Always stay open-minded and remember that the world is much bigger than we think. And it is full of amazing surprises.
- Learn something new from every country you travel to, do not close yourself off in your own bubble, learn different languages. Go out and talk to people, try feeling like you are one of the locals.
- When you feel that you are fed up and cannot go on like this anymore, ask yourself: why do you continue to do it? And if the answer is “love”, just keep going.
