In August 2018, Svetlana Dotsenko and Fabián Alejandro Poliak were visiting the Peterhof palace complex in St. Petersburg, Russia, when Mr. Poliak decided to make a move.
“I’m not leaving these grounds without trying for a kiss,” Mr. Poliak recalled thinking to himself.
A short while later, they were running through the palace gardens in a torrential downpour to catch the last ferry of the day back to the city center. “On the final bridge, I pulled her back,” Mr. Poliak said. “It was very beautiful.”
Ms. Dotsenko, 36, and Mr. Poliak, 35, first met at a party at Harvard in 2008. She was a sophomore from Voronezh, Russia, studying government, and he was a freshman from Buenos Aires studying sociology. Their interaction at the party was brief. Afterward, Ms. Dotsenko messaged Mr. Poliak on Facebook to ask if he would teach her Spanish. Mr. Poliak, “clueless” that the invitation was about more than learning a new language, wondered why she wouldn’t just take a class.
“He didn’t follow up, so we both completely moved on,” Ms. Dotsenko said.
Ten years later, Ms. Dotsenko was on the Greek island of Crete for a summer program that she runs annually as part of her business, Project Lever, which helps international students apply to top colleges in the United States and match with professors for research projects. She posted on Facebook that she was looking for a last-minute tutor for the students.
Mr. Poliak had just received an M.B.A. from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and was traveling around Europe for four months before joining Tesla, where he still works now, as a program manager.
Mr. Poliak answered Ms. Dotsenko’s post, and she hired him immediately. “The program was very intense,” Ms. Dotsenko said. “It was no place for romance.”
Still, she was intrigued by his personality. So before their week together ended, she invited him to join her on a trip to Russia. He agreed.
It was there that their romance began — with the kiss at the palace. They went to Moscow, too, as well as Vladimir, a nearby city, where they visited a bench that promised those who sat on it “eternal love.”
“At the end of that marvelous week together in Russia, I told her I want to see where this goes,” Mr. Poliak said. He was about to start a new job in San Francisco, and Ms. Dotsenko was a digital nomad, never staying in one place for more than a few weeks.
“I asked, ‘Are you down to keep seeing each other once a month?” Ms. Dotsenko said. He was.
For the next year and a half, they dated long-distance, meeting in different countries, like Switzerland, Mexico and Peru. “It was an adventure all over the world,” Ms. Dotsenko said.
“Even with all the logistics, it felt like the easiest relationship I ever had,” Mr. Poliak said. “It was a huge, huge signal.”
When the pandemic started, their distance apart shortened: Mr. Poliak moved to Amsterdam, and Ms. Dotsenko settled in Berlin. (He joined her there in September 2023.) On Aug. 11, 2022, during a surprise trip to Mierzęcin Palace Wellness & Wine Resort in Mierzęcin, Poland, to watch the Perseid meteor shower, Mr. Poliak proposed on a bridge in the resort’s garden.
On Aug. 30, 2023, Ms. Dotsenko took Mr. Poliak to the Magere Brug, or “Skinny Bridge,” in Amsterdam during the blue supermoon. She bent down on one knee, took out a meteorite ring and asked him to marry her. “We try to make our relationship equal on all grounds, so I thought it’s important to have a reciprocal ask,” Ms. Dotsenko said.
[Click here to binge read this week’s featured couples.]
The two were married March 26 by Paula Tambussi, a public official at the Registro Civil Central in Buenos Aires, the same building where Mr. Poliak’s parents were wed in 1981.
A few days later, on March 30, the couple celebrated with 140 guests at Chacra Taló, an events space outside Buenos Aires. The event mixed traditions from their cultures: They stepped on glass to honor Mr. Poliak’s Jewish heritage, and from Ms. Dotsenko’s mother, they received an Russian Orthodox icon from Vladimir, the city they visited in Russia in 2018. Professional dancers performed the tango during the reception.
At midnight, the newlyweds surprised guests with a special performance: Ms. Dotsenko played the piano, Mr. Poliak sang, and Ms. Dotsenko’s cousins divided up the backup singing and drumming duties.
The after-party, at La Posta del Pilar Hotel and Spa, lasted until 7:30 a.m. — when breakfast started. “The last thing he said to me before going to sleep at 9 a.m. was, ‘We chose to get married in the most insane way possible,’” Ms. Dotsenko said.
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