This woman's whirlwind Russian romance proves that travel can change your life

Courtesy Kirstin Schaney

Kirstin Schaney is proof that travel really can can turn your world around.

The Ohio native decided to spend time teaching English in Russia after her high school graduation after learning about the culture through her best friend, a recent immigrant. While working to pay for the Geovisions trip, she Skyped with Russian locals through a pen-pal website to make a few friends and help them improve their English.

One of her students, an international sailor named Yuroslav, made an impression.

"Something about him made me happy," she said. "He would call me when I woke up. Basically any free time we had we were just talking about stuff. Eventually it drew away from teaching him English and just became regular conversations."

Courtesy Kirstin Schaney

After speaking with him for eight months, she requested to be placed as a teacher in his town of Rostov, and arrived on October 4th, 2015.

"I'll never forget the first time I saw him in the airport," she said. "The first time he saw me, his eyes were so big. He came right up to me and kissed my forehead and he went, 'You're so beautiful.'"

Spoiler alert: he would later become her fiancé.