From Russia to Singida: story of lovebirds from 2 continents

Dar es Salaam. Elena Krupenev made a trip to Singida recently to see the grave of the man she loved most--Shambogo William Isaiah Kitundu.

However, she could not hold back her tears as she recalled the relationship with the man they were blessed with a son over 30 years ago.

Elena wishes she had a chance to say goodbye to William.

Elena, who hails from the Smolensk Region in what was then USSR, arrived in Dar es Salaam on June 13, this year. It was her first trip to Africa.

She had one thought in mind. She wanted to meet William’s family, her new family, and find peace of mind and heart.

In last week’s edition of The Citizen on Sunday, her son, Denis Krupenev narrated of his own journey to find William.

Now Elena, his mother, has her own story to tell.

“I loved William,” she said with a longing in her eyes, calling him by his Christian name and recalls how they met in 1980.

Elena met William when he was studying medicine in Pyatigorsk, a city located in south-western Russia while she was studying a course on foreign languages.

The two fell in love and started a happy relationship. They even started considering about tying the knot. However, after William’s graduation it was time for the young doctor to return to Tanzania and serve his country. At this point Elena was already pregnant.

According to Elena, she had graduated a year earlier than William. When she approached her parents to seek permission to go to Tanzania with William, they declined.

“My parents’ greatest fear was that they wouldn’t be able to see me again if they allowed me to leave. And I was the only child. There was no way they could have let me go,” she explains.

Eventually, William left, but they kept in touch for some time while hoping to meet again and perhaps get married.

Time flew so fast and before she realised it, communication had already broken down.

When William returned to Tanzania he was mobilised in the army and sent to Uganda as part of troops that were stationed there after the war with Iddi Amin and according Elena, that was when they started losing each other.

The thought of William never left her mind. She often dreamt of him sending her letters and this kept her hoping to meet him again, but as years elapsed her hope died. However, dreams never stopped.

“Although I stopped hoping to ever reconnect with William, Denis never stopped talking about him. All he ever wanted was to meet his father someday and this broke my heart because it seemed impossible,” she says.

On the day Denis was getting married, 10 years ago, he broke in tears so much because he wanted his father to be present to bless their union.

“This pained me unexplainably, I wished there was something I could do to make his wish come true,” she says.

She says raising Denis on her own was hard especially since teachers in Russia are paid meagrely. However, her mother helped her raise him.

It was her ‘little salary’ as she calls it that she used to give her son transport fare to move across Russia for vacations and so on, she wanted her son to be exposed at least by being familiar with different places in their country.

Elena continues that as a young boy, Denis sometimes earned some money through washing wind shields of cars on busy roads. He did this with his friends. After studies, Denis joined the army and rose to the rank of the commander of the tank and the deputy commander of a tank platoon.

He studied music at the insistence of his mother and was also engaged in boxing, which in Russia is quite expensive training.

According to Denis during the previous interview on the story after he finished military training he visited friends in Moscow who advised him to go to the Embassy of Tanzania to try to re-connect with his father.

At the embassy, he was told to inquire again a month later. When he did so he was politely told that his issue was not a state matter.

In 2013, on the advice of friends Denis hammered his father’s name on Google and was able to find some documents from the Tanzanian ministry of Health that gave him a lead to work on.

He called the ministry. The man on the other end of the line, hearing his father’s last name, answered briefly: “Call back in 15 minutes.” When he called back he was able to get the mobile phone number of his father. And he, immediately, made the call of his dreams;

“Hello is your name Shambogo William Isaiah Kitundu?” “Yes.” “Did you study in Russia?” “Yes.” “I’m your son, Denis.”

At first there was silence from the other end of the receiver, Denis recalls. And then Denis’ mother grabbed the phone and screamed: “William, it’s me!”

Denis says if he had called hours later, he might never have found a way to re-connect with his father.

Elena says after Denis talked to his father they continued communicating and started planning his first visit to Tanzania to meet his new family.

In 2013, Denis and his wife Nattela Karibova flew to Tanzania where they were warmly received. For a week they were taken to Singida where his father originates to see all his relatives and learn more about his origin.

Denis promised his father that he would bring his two children and his mother, Elena, in the next trip.

Natella had a daughter called Annastasia when she remarried Denis who is now 15 year old. However, one night in 2015 Denis received a call that informed him that his father has passed away. He immediately arranged and flew to Tanzania and he arrived on time for burial.

“When I paid my last respects to my father, I remembered the most important step in my life when I dialled the telephone number of the Tanzanian ministry of Health,” Denis said in a previous interview.

When Elena arrived in Dar es Salaam, she was warmly welcomed by the family of the late Mr Kitundu. She was greeted by his widow, Christina Kitundu.

This writer found them at a hotel in Tuangoma, the area where the Kitundu family resides. Elena was having a swim in the hotel’s pool. The two women were warm to each other, laughing and calling each other ‘sisters’.

Elena admits that she was overwhelmed by the reception she received from the family. “This family is the most loving I’ve ever met. They’ve welcomed me with so much love, took me to visit Serengeti and Mikumi National parks, Zanzibar and other places.

But most importantly, they took me to Singida to see where William was buried,” she said.

Tears flow

After those words, Elena started crying, cutting the conversation for a couple of minutes.

“I really loved William. Seeing his grave brought me back to moments we had back in Russia as young lovebirds. I wish I could see him just once again before he died,” she wipes tears away from her eyes and continues: “I have a part of him left with me, Denis, and now I have a nine-year-old grandson Daniel, he’s a great boy.”

Elena never got married. Raising Denis was her focus and it was hard for her to start getting involved in new intimate relationships.

“I was bothered when I imagined that one day I would die and leave Denis who’s my only child with no siblings. But now I can die peacefully, knowing that he has a new family. He has his five siblings and a step mother who loves him so much.”

For her part, Christina said it was a great joy to have had her husband re-connect with his son.

“I knew about Denis even before we got married, so I wasn’t even surprised when he made that phone call and later decided to visit us in Tanzania,” she said.

She went on saying that even the coming of Elena has not bothered her, adding that she was glad that she had an opportunity to personally meet with Denis’ mother.

She further explained that her husband died after a long battle with diabetes. He was diagnosed with diabetes since our early day of marriage. They have been that he suffered since they got married.

They had 25 years of marriage.

Other than Denis, William left five children; Isaiah, 27, Ernest 25, Manase, 23, Martha, 21, and Emmy, 9.