Share
October 31, 2019A Ukrainian citizen, 43-year-old Ivan Liscik, wanted to follow in his great-grandfather's footsteps: walk the distance between Lviv and Rome. The company started on 2 July. Ivan walked for 2 thousand kilometers and for 71 days before arriving in the capital, reached on September 10th.
The man followed the car maps and occasionally used a compass. He lost 40 kilos, covering a distance between 30 and 45 kilometers a day, and spent 740 euros to feed himself. More than once he was stopped by the police: once in Poland, once on the border between Hungary and Austria, and 3 times in Italy. Every time, however, after checking his documents and hearing his story, the border police let him continue, accompanying him instead with police sirens.
Ivan, as mentioned, wanted to repeat the task of his great-grandfather, Ivan Koteljok, recalled in the Austro-Hungarian army in 1914, during the Great War, to fight on the Italian front (at that time the western Ukraine did part of the Austro-Hungarian empire). In 1918, after the war ended, Koteljok returned home on foot, but he did a shorter road, of "only" 1,300 kilometers.
Ivan Liscik was only 2 years old when his great-grandfather died, but the family legend was handed down from generation to generation and Ivan decided to commemorate Koteljok, doing the reverse way on foot.
Ivan's great-grandfather lived in Italy for 12 years, first graduating, then graduating in philosophy in Rome. He knew 6 languages: Ukrainian, Russian, Italian, Polish, German and English. He was a teacher and translator of the Italian language by profession. He had a regular residence permit and could have stayed in the Bel Paese forever. However, according to the admission of Ivan Liscik himself, the love for his own country and his wife prevailed in him.