- April 19, 2024
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A Palm Coast woman has been invited to appear on a TV show July 24 to July 26, in Russia, to meet her relatives for the first time.
A Palm Coast resident since 2000, Gulsin Erel was born in Turkey to Russian parents who had fled Russia during the revolution.
“My grandfather died in Russia, and my grandmother had eight children in a little town east of Moscow,” Erel said. To avoid sending one of her children to the army, Erel’s grandmother fled to Asia, and then settled in 1921, in Istanbul.
“I have never been to Russia,” said Erel, who eventually worked for the United Nations, in Turkey. “I married in Turkey and came to the U.S in 1977.”
Her brother, who still lives in Turkey, married a Russian woman who heard the story and submitted the family’s information to the TV show “Zhdi Menya,” which reunites families that were separated by revolution and war, in Russia.
Three years later, Erel was informed that the staff of the show has found the children of Erel’s great uncles. She still doesn’t know exactly whom she will be meeting.
“They don’t want to tell us because we are supposed to meet on the show,” she said. “I’m very nervous.”
Erel is scheduled to leave July 21 for Russia.
