Interesting and touching  sculpture is installed in Mariinskyi Park, one of the nicest places in Kiev, near romantic  Lover’s bridge.  It is called “Eternal Love” and shows two elderly people hugging each other in an embrace. This monument is dedicated to amazing story of love between Italian soldier Luigi Pedutto and Ukrainian woman Mokryna Yurchuk.
Luigi and Mokryna met in 1943 at a concentration camp in Austria, where they had been imprisoned by Nazi forces.  They were about 20 years old. He was a PoW, she – a displaced worker forced to leave Ukraine with thousands of other people . The war brought  them together, and the war put them apart. Despite the language barrier, they fell in love, supporting and helping each other to survive in the horror of war.
In 1945, when soviet army entered the town and  released all prisoners, Luigi and Mokryna got freedom but it did not bring a happiness to them.
The Italian intended to settle in Ukraine with his girlfriend, but it was  impossible for a foreigner to get into any of the republics of the former Soviet Union at that time. So they lost each other for long 60 years. On 2003 Luigi Pedutto sent a letter to the TV program “Wait for Me”, which specialises in finding missing relatives or people close to its viewers on request.
And he was lucky: his love Mokryna was found in the Ukrainian small village near Dnipropetrovsk in central Ukraine. It was striking and unbelievable news for both of them.
And it's their meeting in the TV studio in 2004 almost 60 years after parting that is depicted by sculptors in the “Eternal Love” monument in Kiev's Maryinskyi park.
Kiev inhabitants and tourists sincerely love this park, Lovers Bridge which lays nearby is almost sacred place for youth and weddings.