Info about my driver/translator while in Chernivtsi Sept 2006

[Slusarchuk-Zilinsky]

I have received permission from Lidiya, my driver/translator while in Chernivtsi last September, to share her contact information. She tells me she is "interested in doing more driving and translating" and would "like to work with everybody who wants to find the relatives".

Her name is Lidiya Lopati and her email address is lidiyalopati@yahoo.com.
She is a wonderful lady. She was very kind and was more than willing to take us whereever we needed to go. She speaks Ukrainian, Russian, Romanian, English and I believe some French and German.

She picked us up at the Cheremosh Hotel in Chernivtsi every day and drove us to the villages of Voloca, Corovia, Glinitsa, Drachintsi, and Veliky Kuchurov - some of these more than once. She assisted with translation at the State Archives where I was fortunate enough to get copies of some family records in less than a week. She spent about 8 hrs a day with us.

Regarding payment for service - Lidiya had not done anything like this before and found it very embarrassing to discuss payment and despite being asked a number of times never did tell me what to pay her. I know that wages in Ukraine as considerably lower than in North America and certainly didn't want to insult her or take advantage of her kindness. In the end it came down to a judgement as to what her time, the use of her vehicle plus the fuel costs was worth to us. We paid her about $95 US dollars for each full day and considered it well worth it!

There was no way that we would have been able to do what we did and go where we did without her! There was nothing we had to worry about and that alone was worth the cost!