Joanne Ginley
IT'S a love story that even the most inspired novelist would struggle to come up with.
Their backgrounds are poles apart but in a few months time Sean Carr, a 36-year-old market stallholder and rock musician from Leeds, will walk down the aisle with the daughter of the Ukrainian Prime Minister.
Mr Carr's life has already turned upside down since he caught the eye of Eugenia Timoshenko in an Egyptian bar. He's upped sticks and moved to the Ukraine and his friends were amazed to see him on TV sitting next to Ukraine president Viktor Yushchenko at the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Kiev this year.
In the autumn Mr Carr will be back in Yorkshire for his wedding, which will be witnessed by 25-year-old Eugenia's mum, Yuliya Timoshenko, the Ukrainian Prime Minister.
Yesterday Mr Carr, who has left behind his Heel and Key bar in Kirkgate Market to live a very different life in the Ukraine said: "I know it's mad. I can't really believe it myself, it's just bizarre."
The love story began with a glance across a bar in Egypt - and could have easily ended there and then if Eugenia hadn't been determined to track Mr Carr down.
"All I saw was this pretty girl disappearing down some stairs. Later on the barman, who was a friend of mine, said she had asked for my number so I said he could give it to her with a message that I would be in the Hard Rock cafe, but she never turned up so I just shrugged it off," Mr Carr said.
But that wasn't to be the end of the story.
Mr Carr said: "The barman tried to sell her my number and when she wouldn't pay he gave her a wrong number instead. She persisted and got it in the end but by this time I was back in England."
Back home in Thorner, Leeds, he received a text out of the blue from Eugenia, who it transpired was a student living in London.
A month later they agreed to meet at a biker's festival. Mr Carr was still in the dark about Eugenia's background but when she invited him to London it became apparent that the pair shared very different backgrounds.
"I still didn't know about her mum, but she seemed to be living in an awful lot of luxury for a student," Mr Carr said.
Five months after they met Mr Carr travelled to the Ukraine – and got a taste of what he had let himself in for. It was the height of the Orange revolution – protests in response to allegations of political corruption, including claims President Yushchenko had been poisoned.
The day after he arrived, he found himself up on stage in front of thousands of people as Eugenia's mother, Yuliya, then in opposition, addressed a crowd. She became Prime Minister six months ago.
At first Mr Carr admits he was terrified of his future mother-in-law but he now calls her "mama".
In April he asked Eugenia, who now holds a master's degree in politics and economics, to marry him at the bar in Egypt where she stood him up. He misses his daughter Charlotte, 10, but is adjusting well to his new life and has moved his customised Harley Davidson and his 11-stone Rottweiler dog, Salem, out to the Ukraine and formed a rock band called Death Valley Screamers.
"It has been a big adjustment for me but I am making it. I am picking up some Ukrainian and I probably know more about the politics of that country than I do about my own. But Eugenia and I just suit each other. She doesn't even want me to cut my hair," he added.
joanne.ginley@ypn.co.uk