by Nikolai Koutaitsev

Hello. My name is Nikolai Koutaitsev, and my life changed during the 14th All-Diaspora Orthodox Youth Conference in Stuttgart, Germany, in June 2024: that is where I met my now wife, Elizaveta.

I was born and raised in Calgary, Canada, and attended my first PVYA conference in Salt Lake City in 2022. When I heard that a new PVYA conference was taking place in 2024, I quickly signed up—especially because it was being held in Germany and would bring together international guests, rather than only North Americans. I remember checking in with fellow attendees from the 2022 conference and wondering whether they too were planning to go to Germany. Many of them were, and I was eager to see them again, catch up, meet new people, and make new connections.

I remember my first encounter with Liza. All the attendees had gathered, and it was time to board the buses that would take us to the retreat where the conference was being held. Everyone was being friendly and social, greeting one another and trying to remember every name they heard. My friend, whom I was traveling with, and I were no different—in a light-hearted spirit, we were making friends left and right.

As we climbed onto the bus, we met two Australian girls right in front of us. One of them was Liza. Since we do not get many Aussies in Canada, my friend and I could not resist teasing them good-naturedly about their accent. Jokingly, I exclaimed, “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!” Their response, of course, was the obligatory “Oi! Oi! Oi!” We all laughed and carried on finding seats on the bus.

I remember thinking, “That Liza girl is cute,” and planning to talk to her more when I had the chance. On her account, though, she claims to have thought, “That Nikolai guy seems fun!” after our first encounter.

The conference continued with much vigor. Every day was filled with exciting opportunities to deepen our understanding of the faith, travel and learn about the local Orthodox heritage, take part in creative team-building activities, and build meaningful relationships with other attendees. I made sure to interact with Liza as often as it was appropriate, and she seemed to reciprocate my energy. We got along well—from chatting on the dancefloor to sitting together during meals—and throughout the conference we built up a solid friendship.

After the week-long conference and countless memories made, Liza and I stayed connected online, where we continued to chat and get to know each other. Soon enough, it became obvious that we were both interested in one another as prospective partners. But there was only one way to know whether this connection was truly real: we had to meet again. That was not so simple, since she was in Australia and I was in Canada.

Liza made the first offer. Since we both enjoyed Orthodox youth conferences, she invited me to attend the local Australian conference, which she was helping to organize as a committee member. I gladly accepted the opportunity to travel to Australia and meet her in person once again—to see whether she truly was the girl I had come to know so well through our online conversations.

In December 2024, I traveled to Melbourne. Liza picked me up from the airport, and together we went directly to the conference, after a small detour for breakfast and coffee. We got along very well, and the Australian conference gave us enough time together to confirm that we wanted to give our relationship a real try. On January 3, 2025, we officially started dating.

I left Australia on January 7 with a strong commitment to make the relationship work, whatever it took, and to come back to visit Liza as soon as I was able—after the final semester of my bachelor’s degree ended. Throughout our long-distance relationship, we video-chatted every single day. In April 2025, I returned to visit Liza in Melbourne.

We were actively discussing what our relationship would look like going forward, and there was no doubt: if we wanted to continue, we would need to resolve the challenge of long distance. The choice ultimately fell on me to move to Australia, since I had just graduated and was much more mobile than Liza, who still had a couple of years of studying ahead of her.

Having made such serious plans, and seeing more and more that Liza was the girl I had always wanted to be with, I decided to propose. Liza responded with a resounding “Yes!”

On April 20, 2026, we were married in the Holy Protection Cathedral in Melbourne, and we have been happily living together ever since.

We would like to say that, thanks to Fr. Andrei’s tremendous efforts in organizing such a monumental youth conference, God blessed Liza and me with meeting each other. If not for Fr. Andrei’s work, I wonder whether Liza and I would ever have met. We are both immeasurably grateful for the immense amount of effort that Fr. Andrei put into organizing the PVYA Orthodox Youth Conference.