VITALY

Name: VITALY: The Misadventures of a Ukrainian Orphan
Author: Vitaly Kirkpatrick

The Misadventures of a Ukrainian Orphan

Abandoned at six. Raised behind iron gates in Chernivtsi, in a system built to erase individuality. This is the book about the beginning — the orphanage, the foster years, and the boy who decided that leaving was the only plan worth having.

Buy on Amazon What it is about

386 pages · on Amazon since February 2022 · published as Vitaly Magidov · third edition in preparation

Third-edition cover: The Boy Behind Iron Gates

Third edition · in preparation

Returning as THE BOY BEHIND IRON GATES

A Memoir of a Ukrainian Orphanage, Foster Care, and Finding Home. Revised and expanded under my own name — with the Ukraine of my childhood restored to the page: Chernivtsi’s cobblestone streets, the Carpathians on the horizon, and a country whose own iron gates were falling open around a boy watching one gate of his own. The story then continues, in order, in Book Two.

From the book

“In that moment, I forgot about the three dollars in my pocket.”

What it is about

The beginning, before any of the rest

The orphanage

Chernivtsi, behind iron gates. Winters cold enough to wear a hat and scarf indoors. A place that taught survival and not much else.

Who decides what is normal?

I spent years trying to understand what normal was, until I finally questioned the standard itself.

Leaving

2005. A plane, a folder, and a country that owed me nothing. It felt as wild as any fairy tale.

Photographs

The places, before the story was a book

Chernivtsi, and the building the state put me in. These are the actual rooms and streets the first chapters are set in.

The orphanage building in Chernivtsi — **The building**The orphanage in Chernivtsi. Iron gates, and a yard you did not leave without permission.

A dormitory room — **The room**Winters cold enough that a hat and scarf were indoor clothing.

Institutional corridor — **The corridor**Everything ran on a bell and a line. Individuality was an administrative problem.

A group of teenagers outside — **The others**You do not choose the people you grow up with here. You survive alongside them.

The Chernivtsi city sign — **The city**Chernivtsi — the last place I was from before the word meant something else.

Summer camp — **Summer**Camp, tents, a fire. The weeks that did not feel like the institution.

From the pages

Four lines, as they appear

“Abandoned at the age of six, Vitaly grows up behind iron gates — navigating abuse, neglect, and the struggle to hold on to himself.”
“The winters were harsh and biting cold… even inside, I would wear a hat, gloves, and a scarf around my mouth.”
“It was 2005, but it felt as wild as any fairy tale — a Ukrainian orphan left behind the cold streets of Chernivtsi.”
“In that moment, I forgot about the three dollars in my pocket.”

Quoted from the published edition. The whole book is on Amazon.

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The record

What is actually on file

386pages

2022published February

6age when it starts

2005the year it ends

Vitaly Magidovauthor of recordThe name on the listing. The records spell it Mahidov; the book does not.

Chernivtsiwhere it is setWestern Ukraine, near the Romanian border. Orphanage, foster placements, then out.

B09V2NM74Mon Amazon since Feb 2022Kindle and paperback, under the pen name.

Where it sits

This is Book One

It ends where the next one begins. Green Card, Gold Ring picks up at JFK in 2005 and runs to 2016.

Book Two →The whole shelf

A note on the listing. This book is published under the name Vitaly Magidov. Everything else here is under Vitaly Kirkpatrick — same person, and something I am in the process of reconciling.