“I now pronounce you husband and wife,” the registry official announces. The man and woman awkwardly pull off their masks and kiss.
Only a handful of guests are gathered to congratulate them. There are no restaurants open where they can celebrate.
This is hardly the way most couples imagine their wedding day, but that’s how many marriages have been consecrated since the start of the novel coronavirus pandemic in Ukraine.
COVID-19 has changed many aspects of life around the globe. But it hasn’t affected couples’ desire to tie the knot.
Despite the restrictive nationwide quarantine that was established a month ago, only about 10% of the couples that planned to get married during this time in Kyiv canceled or rescheduled their ceremony. The majority decided to go ahead.
“At this, frankly, difficult time for society, it turned out that many couples in love seek stability in relationships,” says Rada Dashutina, the head of the Kyiv civil registration department at the Ministry of Justice.
The ministry isn’t standing in their way. Registry offices around the country continue to get couples married. Since the start of the quarantine on March 12, over 5,000 couples have gotten married across Ukraine.
Kyiv’s most popular central registry office has held nearly 700 weddings, just a bit slightly less than usual. But while marriages continue, the registry has made some changes. Couples are encouraged to wear protective masks and are only allowed to bring eight guests to the ceremony.
The Kyiv Post went to the central registry office to meet the couples marrying under quarantine.
Groom Viktor Siniakov pulls off a protective mask to kiss his bride Yevhenia Savchenko-Siniakova during their wedding at the Kyiv central registry office, which takes place at the time of the coronavirus quarantine on April 3, 2020. (Volodymyr Petrov)
In heaven
Viktor Siniakov, 58, and Yevhenia Savchenko-Siniakova, 51
For both Yevhenia Savchenko-Siniakova and Viktor Siniakov, their wedding on April 4 wasn’t their first marriage, but it was no less special.
By the time their paths crossed in 2013, Siniakov had lived alone for 18 years after divorcing his first wife. Savchenko-Siniakova had been single for seven years since her first husband died in a car crash.
It was an office romance that started when then 51-year-old Siniakov joined the staff of the scientific organization, where 44-year-old Savchenko-Siniakova worked.
“Something clicked right away,” says Savchenko-Siniakova, who added her new husband’s surname to hers.
He was constantly looking for a reason to step into her office. She was charmed by his persistence. Soon they would spend most of their breaks together.
“She is calm, reasonable, pretty — everything I wished for,” he says.
“He’s open-minded, kind and it’s easy to be with him,” she says.
After about two years, they moved in together.
They say that some of their entrenched habits made it harder to get used to one another. But because they had years of experience, their choice to do so was as conscious as can be.
“You don’t want to be alone, you want to share responsibility with someone,” Savchenko-Siniakova says.
Siniakov wanted the proposal to be perfect. He asked Savchenko-Siniakova to marry him on a plane on their way back from vacation, as if they were “in heaven.”
She thought it was a joke and didn’t even reply, leaving him confused. So sometime later, he tried again, only to see the same reaction.
“It just didn’t sound serious,” she says, laughing.
But soon she realized that the ball was in her court and started to hint at getting married. So they picked the first available Saturday — the day they are usually both off from work — for the ceremony.
After the quarantine was established, they were sure that registry offices would shut down and their plans would automatically be canceled. They didn’t bother to check until April 4 — the day their wedding was scheduled for. To their surprise, they still could get married. So the couple gathered documents, paid fees and arrived at the registry office.
They say they weren’t scared to be exposed to the infection because they came in their own car and wore protective masks.
“It’s more dangerous in the grocery store,” Siniakov says.
They didn’t invite any guests, not even the children from their first marriages, because “it’s not the time” for gatherings, Savchenko-Siniakova says.
In a spacious high-ceilinged hall that can hold around 40 visitors, there was just the couple, a marriage officiant and a photographer.
“It wasn’t really festive,” Siniakov says. “But we understand the situation.”
Although the couple initially planned to have a celebratory dinner in a restaurant, that was not an option since all the eateries now only offer takeout or delivery. Instead, the newlyweds shared a cake that they bought on their way home.
“We didn’t want to throw a ‘feast in the time of plague,’” Siniakov says.
The couple hopes to go on a honeymoon to a beach resort in Turkey or Cyprus when the pandemic is over. And in the meantime, they are enjoying their shared quarantine life in a Kyiv apartment — now married to each other.
“We’re together, and that’s all that matters,” Siniakov says.
Anna and Phillip McCubbin sign documents as they get married at the Kyiv central registry office during the COVID-19 quarantine on April 4, 2020. (Volodymyr Petrov)
Radioactive ground
Anna McCubbin, 33, and Phillip McCubbin, 41
For Anna and Phillip McCubbin, who until recently lived over 10,000 kilometers apart, the COVID-19 pandemic was just another obstacle.
They met in one of Kyiv’s bars in September, when Phillip, an American, was traveling in Ukraine.
Before Phillip went back to his home in San Diego, California, the two had only two dates. But it was enough for them to catch feelings.
He loved her “very fun, easy personality,” while she admired his “sarcastic, dark sense of humor,” which perfectly matched hers.
Only three days after his return to the U.S., Phillip booked new tickets to Kyiv so that they both had something to look forward to.
Despite the 10-hour time difference, the two stayed in touch almost non-stop — when they couldn’t FaceTime, they were messaging one another.
“Every chance we had, we were chatting,” Philip says.
“We were spending more time with each other than with our friends,” Anna says.
After two months of a long-distance relationship, Philip hopped on a plane to Kyiv.
Then, the couple went on a trip to the Chornobyl nuclear power plant exclusion zone — Phillip says that his U.S. friends wouldn’t have understood him if he missed a chance to visit the world-famous site of the reactor explosion.
The tour took an unexpected turn when Phillip decided to make a proposal in what might be the most unusual place for romantic gestures. He says that he couldn’t get on one knee because they were told not to touch the ground.
“There was radiation everywhere,” Phillip says.
But Anna loved the offbeat move and the couple got engaged.
Getting a visa for Anna to move to the U.S. would be a time-consuming process. So the couple decided that Phillip should move to Ukraine.
He arrived in February, just about a month before Ukraine shut its borders to foreigners as part of the restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of coronavirus.
Set for early May, their wedding was supposed to be a small celebration for close friends and family. But it turned out to be even smaller than they planned, as Phillip’s relatives couldn’t come to Ukraine anymore.
As Ukraine kept intensifying measures, the couple feared the registry offices would be closed and they wouldn’t be able to get married. So they asked to move their date — the sooner the better.
They were notified that there was a free slot in early April. So Anna quickly ordered flowers and organized hair and makeup artists to get her ready.
“I was an express bride,” she jokes.
They say they don’t plan to celebrate again after the quarantine is over because it just “won’t be the same feeling.”
But they still hope to go for a honeymoon — although Italy, which was their first choice, doesn’t seem like an option anymore since the country might take a while to recover from one of the worst COVID-19 outbreaks.
They now mostly stay at home, getting to spend more time together than they ever did before.
“It’s nice to have her around all day,” Phillip says.
As Anna is doing logistics for an international company remotely and Phillip is looking for a new job as a software engineer, the two are planning their future together.
“We’re hoping to be a family,” Phillip says.
“He wants to have five kids — and I agree,” Anna adds.
Oksana and Bohdan Kolisnyk look at each other, as they wear face masks and stand with their guests outside of the Kyiv central registry office, where they just arrived to get married during the coronavirus quarantine on April 4, 2020. (Volodymyr Petrov)
It started with tangerines
Oksana Kolisnyk, 34, and Bohdan Kolisnyk, 22
Ever since Oksana and Bohdan Kolisnyk met in October, their relationship has been developing at a high speed. Even the pandemic failed to slow them down.
It all started when Bohdan joined a club for enthusiasts of the Afro-Brazilian martial art capoeira. Oksana had been training there for five years.
She says that Bohdan always treated club members to fruit after training. When he skipped trainings, she thought she missed the tangerines he shared.
“It turned out I missed Bohdan,” she says.
Despite their 12-year age difference, they quickly bonded over their love of sports and their similar tastes in music. But the 22-year-old student and 34-year-old logistics specialist didn’t blindly ignore the challenge of being at different stages of life. Instead, they had honest conversations about their plans.
In a matter of months after they met, the couple moved in together. And soon after that, Bohdan proposed to Oksana.
“Although it was a bit too fast, I knew I wanted to be with him,” she says.
A big challenge for the couple was introducing each other to their families and explaining why they were hurrying with the wedding.
“They said that the most important thing is if we’re happy,” Bohdan says.
When the government announced the quarantine, the couple decided not to cancel their ceremony because they were anticipating it too much. Yet they had to make a few changes to their wedding plans.
Since most stores were closed, they had to buy the dress and wedding suit online, with no trying on. The restaurant they had booked shut down for quarantine. And only their parents could join them as they registered their marriage. The rest of their relatives had to wait outside.
They say the ceremony went very fast. They can only remember a few glimpses of it. Afterwards, the couple had a small celebration with family. But once the quarantine is over, they want to invite a “bunch of relatives” to a restaurant and celebrate the occasion in a more memorable way.
The newlyweds plan to have a vacation abroad when international travel becomes possible again. As for now, they are spending their lockdown honeymoon exercising, playing board games and listening to music.
Oksana says that the quarantine causes lots of confusion, but they’re enjoying every day with one another.
“We made an arrangement to be together for 101 years and then we’ll see,” Oksana says.
