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Sergey Kryukov (43) sadly lost contact with his sister, Elena Temnikova (45), after their parents divorced when he was just three years old.
His mom took him with her when she left the village of Taiginka, Russia, and left his older sister behind with their father.
The siblings hadn’t seen each other since and Sergey took it upon himself to post the only photograph he had of his sister on social media in hopes of being reunited with her.
"Good day to all. I need your help. In the photo the girl is about five years old, her name is Elena Kryukova, maybe the surname is changed,” Sergey wrote.
He went on to say that he last heard that his sister was taken from their father and placed in an orphanage in the town of Ozyorsk.
A former paratrooper and firefighter, Sergey said he’d look for his sister until he found her – even if it meant embarking on a lifelong search.
Miraculously, the 43-year-old’s persistence paid off and the siblings have now been reunited.
Elena, who doesn’t remember much about the time she lived with her brother, was alerted to the post by her friends.
"My friends called me: ‘Lena, it seems there is something written about you,” she says.
"I look – I'm in the picture! I subscribed, I phoned. I cannot believe that this all happened to me."
The 45-year-old revealed that she had a difficult childhood with her father.
"We lived really badly with my father.
"He wasn’t drinking but didn’t really take any care of me. He re-married and got a son. I wasn’t needed,” she said.
Elena, who lived with various families before she was taken in by an orphanage, says she’s not angry at anyone for the way her life turned out.
"Life turned out to be that way, who’s there to blame for it? Bottom line we didn’t lose it all and found each other after all. It’s just the very beginning,” she said.
Source: Magazine Features
Pictures: CATERS/WWW.MAGAZINEFEATURES.CO.ZA
