Hi! It’s me, Evgeniia Molodykh, the person behind the Nemuro Corsets, and Olena Strekalova, artist known as Holly Haurelia.
Short story: we’re a queer couple stuck in Georgia, Eastern Europe, and we need to get married to ensure our rights and safety.
I’m russian, Olena is Ukrainian, and during this war my ability to enter most of the western countries is severely limited. The only low-risk way for us to register marriage - travel to Mexico, to the opposite side of the globe.
It will cost us $6000 on tickets and registration itself. At this stage of our life we decided to be brave and ask for the help of community - LGBTQA+, artists, fandoms, women, history and costuming lovers - whoever wants to join and help us to get there!
We open the donations via my shop and business PayPal. We’re grateful for any sum and I’ll put updates here and on my instagram.
More details below!
Love you all and thank you for any help!
And here comes the long story for those who’d love to learn more about our case.
I’m Evgeniia Molodykh, 36 y.o. corsetmaker from russia, emigrated to Tbilisi, Georgia (aka Sakartvelo, small country in Caucasus region of Eastern Europe) in March 2022 when my country started the war in Ukraine. I’ve been making corsets for half of my life (literally, since 2006) and since 2019 I’m doing it online first on Etsy, then here in my shop.
My fiancee is Olena Strekalova, ukrainian digital artist, known under nickname Holly Haurelia. She fled from the siege of Kyiv in April 2022 to Tbilisi, where we finally met after knowing each other online and in small fandom chat. That’s how our story started, and we’ve been together since we met and gonna be till the end of our lives (common wlw story, don’t worry, we know what we’re doing =)
If you don’t know much about LGBT rights in Eastern Europe (russia, Georgia or even Ukraine) - there are no. In my country we’re considered criminals and extremists (I’ll attach a few links in the notes), in Georgia we’re on the edge of implementing anti-LGBT law following ru handbook (also links below) and local Prides were brutally attacked over the last years. We desperately need to eventually end up in a place where we are safe and have basic human rights, protected by the law and people around us.
To even consider further relocation, we want to get married legally. Please avoid advice like “country X recognizes partnerships” - we’re already at high risk of visa rejection in most First World countries, we need as many guarantees of success as possible.
And here comes the fun part - I have russian passport and visa ban in a lot of countries that allow same-sex marriage for foreigners. And I cannot go back to russia to prepare most of the documents needed for the EU since I’m under high risk of being arrested at least for 3 different laws taken after the fascist russian regime bloomed in its full glory.
So while straight couple can get married in Georgia in 2 days with $50 fees, couple of local friends and a box of wine, we have to get to the opposite side of the globe to do this. Literally, we have a perfect proven opportunity to get easy and fast marriage registered in Mexico. There’s only one problem - it will cost us $6000 for tickets and procedures only. No party, no guests, hotel stay not included above (we pay it of our own savings).
Here we ask for YOUR help. We wanted to save a bit and do all of this next year. But the political situation in Georgia has gotten much worse lately (links below too), so we decided to speed up the process to avoid ending up with russia in our pants and pockets again,
We ask all the communities we’re in - LGBTQA+, emigrants, artists, gaming, costuming, cosplay, history lovers, women and all the humans that are able to do the good thing today.
We’re doing the crowdfunding here in my shop, since no gofundme or kickstarter type of platform allows eastern european countries to open a funding. The payments are collected to my PayPal business account with all the fees and taxes on my side. Every $10 counts, and if we go above the goal - we’ll spend those on stuff like wedding rings or dresses to celebrate our day a bit.
The updates will be posted here and in my IG https://www.instagram.com/nemuro_corsets/
If you ask about our families and their financial help - even those who recognise and support our relationship are elderly people with a monthly pension of around $200. And we don’t have any big savings since we’re a small business and freelance artist couple already emigrating in a country with quite a high cost of living compared to this region.
So, to donate you can use this lot and adjust the sum in the cart by changing item quantity.
If you want to donate using ukrainian or russian card transfer, please dm me in IG for details.
You can also help by spreading our request for help in any social media, or by supporting our business with orders:
https://hollyhaurelia.bigcartel.com/ - Lena’s merch store
https://hollyhaurelia.carrd.co/ - Lena’s commission page
https://twitter.com/Holly_Haurelia
https://www.instagram.com/holly_haurelia/
https://nemuro-corsets.com/ - my shop
https://www.instagram.com/nemuro_corsets/ - my IG page for DMs
https://www.tiktok.com/@nemuro_corsets
orders@nemuro-corsets.com - for any business inquiries
Below I collected a number of proof links to check on our identities and political events we refer to above.
We don’t have many posts together since we’re not totally safe here and prefer to keep it private.
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5Yit2pNX0S/ - our 2nd anniversary
https://www.instagram.com/p/ClJQbikjcPQ/ - our first Family Business attempt
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cfl3pbaja0C/ - on charity donations for Ukraine
… I feel I need to post a collection of our photos from 2022-2024 somewhere in public
On anti-LGBT laws in russia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_anti-LGBT_law
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/30/russia-supreme-court-bans-lgbt-movement-extremist
https://time.com/6342383/russias-court-ban-of-the-lgbtq-movement/
On anti-LGBT actions in Georgia / Sakartvelo
https://www.politico.eu/article/georgia-ban-change-gender-new-anti-lgbtq-law-tbilisi/
https://civil.ge/archives/588748
https://civil.ge/archives/430551
https://civil.ge/archives/601008
https://civil.ge/archives/551689 - on 2023 attack on Tbilisi Pride
On current political situation in Georgia
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/11/thousands-protest-against-foreign-influence-bill-in-georgia
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/georgia-protest-foreign-agents-bill-police-georgian-parliament
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cle0j5we2pno
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023%E2%80%932024_Georgian_protests
Thank you so much for reading and feel free to contact us with any questions.
May the world reward you with all the luck and happiness and love for what you do for us!