My Origins — the Carpathian Mountains of Ukraine
A trip to my mother’s relatives confirmed my ancestral blood and inspired my forever love of mountains
I always considered myself “a city girl” growing up in Western New York State in a city along Lake Ontario and the Genesee River surrounded by rolling hills. I chose to move to an even larger city, Boston, for college and work afterward. My mother always told me that I hailed from mountain stock but other than learning to snow ski as a teenager, I never felt any special affinity to the mountains.
This was — until I moved to Ukraine in 1996 and began to visit my mother’s relatives in Turka in the Lvivska Oblast nestled in the Carpathian Mountains.
My first visit was when my mother and a few siblings accompanied her on a trip through Ukraine. She had arranged a car service to pick us up and drive us to Turka. I’ll never forget the drive through the windy roads and switchbacks taking us up the breathtaking Carpathian Mountain passes. At 557 meters (1,827 feet), Turka is a city of 8,000 people settled within a valley in the mountains. A permanent settlement had been here since at least the Neolithic times.
