Gulshan Kia was born in Crimea, near Alushta. And Tahir Sirazutdinov was born in Tatarstan. They were brought together by the deportation in 1944. Tahir’s family moved to Crimea before the war to escape hunger. But in 1944 they were deported together with other nations to the Mari ASSR. That’s where Gulshan and her family got in too.