Because Of The War, This Russian-Ukrainian Couple Had To Get Married In Turkey

Illustration of the impact of the Russian attack on Ukraine. (Wikimedia Commons/dsns.gov.ua/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Dressed casually and with smiles on their faces, Andrii Polytskyi and Tatiana Ianchenko are no different from the thousands of tourists who visit Turkey's Antalya Province every year.

However, their story and the purpose of their visit highlight how war can change even the simplest wedding plans.

Polytksyi, a 30-year-old man from Ukraine, met Ianchenko, 27, from Russia before the war began in Ukraine, raising tensions between their two countries to an all-time high.

Initially, the two were planning to get married in Ukraine. However, the conflict that broke out in February forced them to rethink. Polytskyi, who works in Poland, and Ianchenko, came up with a location idea for their wedding: Kemer, a holiday resort in Antalya, is very popular with tourists from their country.

Their wedding plans in Antalya were not without obstacles. When they both fail to receive the necessary documents for the wedding from their country's consulate in the province, they have to go to the capital Ankara, to apply to their embassies.

Finally, on Friday, the couple managed to make their wedding official in Kemer. In a simple wedding ceremony with a few friends, they tied the knot by answering "I do" in Turkish to a question from Kemer Mayor Necati Topaloğlu, who officiated the wedding.

The plan is for the couple to spend their honeymoon in Kemer, before making a final decision on which country they will live in.

"We love each other and feel happy and lucky to be married here. I love her no matter what happens between our countries. Love will win in the end," Ianchenko told Demirören News Agency (DHA) after the wedding, as quoted Daily Sabah May 27 .

Polytskyi said he didn't care where his wife came from as long as they loved each other.

"I hope the war will end soon and we will travel together to Ukraine and Russia," he said.

"You see that a citizen of Ukraine and Russia got married here today. This shows that the people of those countries do not want war. I hope they set an example and the two countries stop fighting each other," said Mayor Topaloglu.