“I was in shock from joy and happiness.” A Belarusian woman searched for 15 years for the Italian family she lived with as a child after Chernobyl

One of my biggest dreams

Diana arrived in Bergamo in December 2025. With her husband, she had pre-booked a hotel for four days: she didn't want to bother anyone and wasn't sure how the reunion with the Italian family would be after so many years. But when Gilda found out, she scolded Diana almost like a family member: why a hotel, when you have a home here?

Up to that point, Diana had been looking for the Italian family for about 15 years.

“It was one of my biggest dreams — to find them and go there again,” says Diana. “When I found myself in Bergamo, I just walked around the city and got lost in childhood memories.”

The meeting was scheduled for December 24. Diana thought that only Gilda would be brought to the restaurant. Her son and Gilda's husband, Bernardo, had initially told her so. But when she and her husband arrived, it turned out that almost the entire family was gathered at the table: children, grandchildren, other relatives.

Gilda was the first to approach Diana. They embraced, and Diana couldn't hold back her tears.

“I cried out loud from an excess of emotions,” she recalls.

Bernardo was no longer alive by then — he had died from an oncological disease. He was also remembered at the meeting: the family said that he remembered Diana. The memory of those childhood trips was preserved by all older family members.

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To Italy — through a program at the sanatorium boarding school in Uzda

Diana is from Uzda. A health improvement program for children affected by the consequences of the Chernobyl accident operated at the local sanatorium boarding school. Within this program, the Italian fund "Let's Help Them Live" cooperated with Belarus.

First, a friend of Diana's went to Italy under this program. Then, a few years later, the Italians came to Uzda with this friend and invited Diana as well.

This is how the Belarusian woman first came to Gilda and Bernardo's family. They lived in Bergamo, had three children, and owned a furniture factory. This detail would help Diana in her search many years later: she remembered that the factory was located in the same house where the family lived.

From 1997 to 1999, Diana flew to them three times. These were not summer vacations but autumn trips — approximately in October-November. Each time, the children stayed in Italy for two to three months.

Studies were not interrupted during this time. A room was allocated for Belarusian children, where they studied with a supervising educator. They studied in Russian, using textbooks they brought with them from Belarus. No grades were given: after returning, the children simply continued their studies at their own school.

“They took me as a translator for other children”

Diana remembers her first trip as a time when much was unclear. First and foremost, the language.

“When I went for the first time, I didn't understand anything. They tried to speak Russian with me, but because of the accent, I still didn't understand,” she laughs.

But by her second visit, Diana was speaking Italian fluently. She was even taken as a translator for other children who lived in Italian families and couldn't communicate on their own yet.

Italy became for her not just a country where she was sent "for recuperation." It was a place where she was accepted as one of their own. Gilda cooked, cared for her, bought things. The family gave gifts — clothes, jewelry, sweets. One time, Diana was given a bicycle, but she couldn't take it back to Belarus: there was simply no way to transport it.

She also brought gifts from Belarus — for example, straw crafts.

Food became a special childhood impression.

“This was my food,” says Diana. “Gilda fed me pasta for lunch every day. After that, I didn't eat it for about ten years. But the idea that there's only pasta in Italy is a stereotype. There's a lot of rice, seafood, and other food there.”

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The last invitation arrived in 2003

In ninth grade, Diana received another invitation to Italy. It was 2003. But she couldn't go due to illness.

After that, contact gradually broke off.

“When social media appeared, I started looking for them on Facebook and Instagram. But Gilda wasn't there. I was looking specifically for her and for a long time didn't know an important detail: in Italy, women usually don't change their surname after marriage. So, I didn't immediately think to look for her daughter using the same surname,” says Diana.

Even wrote on Google Maps

About four years ago, after moving to Poland, Diana was once again gripped by the idea of searching. From childhood, she remembered not only Bergamo but also that the family's furniture factory was in the same house where Gilda and Bernardo lived. Based on these memories, Diana found a similar place on the map — a house and a factory — and tried to contact them via Google Maps: she left a message there asking if anyone knew this family. But she received no answer.

She also wrote to the local authorities in Bergamo, hoping they could advise her on how to find the family. But there was no reply from there either.

Her husband joined the search. He started looking for the factory on social media and found a company with a similar name in Bergamo. It turned out that the factory had been renamed over the years. Diana wrote to the factory's Instagram.

“An hour later, I received a reply from Stefano — Bernardo and Gilda’s grandson. He wrote that he would contact the older family members and pass on my contact details to them,” says the woman.

At that moment, Diana realized that her years-long search might finally be over.

“I was in shock from joy and happiness,” she recalls.

Soon, Diana received an email from Sara — Gilda’s youngest daughter. Diana replied that she would be in Bergamo in a month and would very much like to meet. The family invited her and her husband for lunch at a restaurant.

“The most beautiful things in life are not things”

This meeting became for Diana a return to a part of her life she considered lost. At the table were people who remembered her as a child. Among them was Aurora, Gilda and Bernardo's granddaughter. When Diana came to Italy for the second time, Aurora had just been born. Now they correspond. Diana also communicates with Sara.

Gilda is now 73 years old. Diana says she is very lively, cheerful, and still accepts her as her own.

After the meeting, Diana was given an album with photographs of her as a child in Italy, next to the people she had once almost lost. They flipped through it together. Diana didn't have some of the pictures — she saw them for the first time as an adult, many years after those trips.

At the end of the album, there was an inscription in Italian: "The most beautiful things in life are not things. They are places, people, memories, smiles, and emotions..."

Павялічыць

Diana was also given a diamond pendant.

“It was my dream to find them,” says Diana. “And I made it come true. This meeting was unforgettable.”

Currently, Diana continues to communicate with the Italian family. She and her husband are already planning a new trip to Bergamo. This time, as Gilda requested, they want to stay not in a hotel but at her home.

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