Russian woman reunites with Mandurah host family after 20 years

At nine years old, Valeria Bordyuzhenko’s life changed for the better after staying in Mandurah with the Macdonald family as part of a program that took a group of 25 children, who were orphans, street kids, victims of Chernobyl or from poor families, on holiday.

“My father knew a woman who belonged to the organisation,” she said. “She explained to my father about the trip and decided to send me also.”

Ms Bordyuzhenko said she has never forgotten how “warm and kind” the Macdonald family were to her.

After six weeks of travelling around to different tourist destinations in Mandurah and Perth, a young Ms Bordyuzhenko said goodbye in tears, with three suitcases full of presents from her host family.

Among them a gold ring with her name engraved, which she still wears. 

“I brought all these cool gifts [home] and everyone was so emotional because no one had this sort of stuff,” she said. “Everyone would come to my house to play with my new toys. I was so touched because everything to me was new and unusual and unexpected.”

Although she tried to write when she returned home, Russia’s poor postal service at the time meant she never received a reply. It wasn’t until two years ago that Ms Bordyuzhenko, who now lives in New York, decided to find her host mother Diane Macdonald on Facebook.

It came as a welcomed surprise for Ms Macdonald, who still lives in Mandurah. 

“We may not have been able to keep in contact with her but we never forgot about her,” she said. “I remember her face would light up just going into Kmart because she had never seen anything like it before. And soap; she would sit there and just smell it because in Russia it was made of animal fat and smelt really bad. She appreciated everything.”

It was Ms Bordyuzhenko’s husband, Oleg, who encouraged his wife to visit the family who took her in all those years ago. 

After two decades of waiting, the family reunited with Ms Bordyuzhenko, who they call their Russian daughter, last month when she came back to the place where it all began. 

“It had been so long and I didn’t know what had changed and I was really excited to meet everyone again,” Ms Bordyuzhenko said. “I wanted to thank them for all that they did for me. They were all still so warm and kind. They don’t have to do things for me but they do. They are my Australian family.”