Dear Donors,

My name is Evgeniy Lukovskiy, I’m 25, now I am studying my second year of academic degree.

I was born in Russia in a town called Perm. You certainly haven’t heard of this town, it’s located about 2000 kilometers to the West from Siberia. I have an older sister named Marina, she still lives with my mother Irina and her husband in Russia. My father Yuri passed away 13 years ago from heart attack.

Since the fifth grade until the ninth I studied in a Jewish school “Or Avner”, where for the first time I discovered the Jewish culture, tradition and history. My classmates moved to Israel after ninth grade in the “Naale” program, but my mother did not let me, telling me that I am too young. Two years after I finished the school I finally convinced her to sign the permission for me to participate in the “Sela” program. Still I was not 18 yet, I needed her signed permission.

“Sela” is a program for repatriates from the former USSR that finished the school and are willing to acquire degree in Israel. So in autumn 2010 I moved to Israel. The program was 9 months long. During the program I learned Hebrew together with my group in "ulpan", acquired the citizenship and traveled around half the country, discovered many new things about Israel and got familiar with its culture and people.

After the program 10% of participants went to study in the universities and 90% decided to serve in the army first, and I was among the later.

I waited for my call up for three months and finally on October 30th 2011, I enlisted to the IDF. First three weeks I was on the sorting base for "olim hadashim" in "Michvei Alon". That’s where I found my first army friends. After three weeks of hesitation, I decided to continue my service in "Kfir" - the youngest military squad which mainly covers the towns and villages of Judea and Samaria, defending the Jewish settlements.

At first, it was quite difficult, mostly mentally, and less physically, because my poor Hebrew was barely enough to understand even half of the orders, but with a bit of time the problem was resolved. During three years of army I visited almost all the places in Israel. Apart from Judea and Samaria I visited all the borders: the Lebanese, the Syrian, the Jordanian and also Egyptian. We patrolled all of the mentioned borders, dispersed and suppressed many demonstrations in Palestinian areas, found and arrested the terrorists, searched for the kidnapped Jewish teenagers and, indeed, had the regular military service, like dozens of daily duties in the kitchen and base cleaning. In November 2014 I was demobilized when on the border with Gaza district with the rank of sergeant.

After the service I married the beauty from my home town, Anastasia. Now we live in a rented apartment in Ashdod for almost three years, and I also work and study in this town. I study in the engineering college SCE for industrial engineer and manager. I work in security service in the Ministry of Aliyah and Absorption. Combining the studying and the job is not always convenient, though I know that I am not the only one to do so, then I don’t despond. The studying is hard, but interesting. I hope that when I get the “Impact” scholarship I’d be able to work less and study more.

In “Impact” we got to choose between 20 non-profit organizations, and I chose the community “Big Brother”. This community helps the lone soldiers in different problems: we share our personal experience, giving helpful advice, for we were lone soldiers ourselves and we know what difficulties could await them during the service. We always are ready to support them in the hard time, or, in the opposite, share with them joy, when the family and friends are not there for them. Pretty soon I am receiving the names of soldiers whom I am going to support in overcoming the severities in their service.

I want to thank you for your selfless help, for your generosity, by which you not only helping us to reach our ambitions, but also demonstrating the brilliant illustration of how important it is to help other people! I hope that your family and community “Impact” will succeed even more this year.

Have a nice and warm winter.

Sincerely yours,
Evgeniy Lukovskiy

This is a picture of me at Masada Fortress