People We Meet: Yury Loves Liya

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How deeply did Yury Budylova fall for Liya Klets, an 18-year-old Siberian beauty? 

When she travelled to his Ukrainian village from her native Siberia (Novosibirsk) for her uncle’s funeral in 1977, how soon did he know she was the one?

Instantly.

A metalworker, he’d been hired to fabricate the railing around her uncle’s gravesite, and he couldn’t forget her after she returned home. So he called and reached her mom, who told him, “If you are indeed my daughter’s chosen one, (izbrannik) then you must come here to meet me.”

How much did he love her to get on an Aeroflot propeller plane in a snowstorm (with the plane’s heat not working), flying over six hours from Kiev to Novosibirsk (transferring at Omsk)?  

“I arrived absolutely frozen and exhausted, took a taxi to her apartment, where her mom took one look at me, pushed me into a hot shower and poured me a large cognac.”

That same determination sparked his family’s emigration to San Francisco in 1989, and his successful reinvention as a lighting craftsman, a master fixture restorer and designer.

His 1977 marriage to his “chosen one’’ has tempered like steel, their bond strengthened through migration, raising a family, starting two businesses, suffering a stroke during COVID-19 stress, and now tariff worries.

Walking into his shop/atelier, Yury’s Lights & Beyond on Divisadero Street, is to step into a glowing crystal forest: Elegant chandeliers swinging from the ceiling, floor lamps tilting at odd angles, and everywhere lights glittering on tables.

All available wall space is jammed with shelves holding lighting hardware, shades, and bulbs. His workshop, a daunting jumble of wires, bulbs, switches and tools, finials and fixtures, is in the back.

The store is crammed and cozy at the same time, seemingly in chaos but one that makes sense to Yury, who threads his way through the clutter in cardigans and Uggs. (“I hate to be cold.”)

“I buy from auctions,” Yury remarks, “Most of the lamps are from Europe, France, Italy, Spain and the United States. And 99 percent of my lamps are vintage.”

Yury was born in 1953, when his dad was 60. (His father’s first wife and three children died of hunger and disease during WWII.) He went to vocational school to become a mechanic and, at his father’s urging, studied lighting as well. Then he went to work at a huge machine-building factory, and Liya worked in a barbershop. They lived in Yury’s Ukraine to be close to his elderly parents. 

He wanted his kids to attend the best kindergarten, so when that school’s director hinted it’d be great if he built them a jungle gym, he did it — after work, with discarded metal — and his kids got in. He even fabricated wastebaskets shaped like penguins, with sides that swung back and forth when someone threw anything away.

But there was antisemitism.‘‘What a smart Jew you are’’ was a compliment he got from his boss after he solved a vexing problem. He knew his career was stalled.

So, when President Ronald Reagan told President Mikhail Gorbachev, “Tear down this wall,” and Jews were allowed to emigrate from the USSR, he and Liya decided to leave with his widowed mother, and two children.

They arrived in April 1990, sponsored by his sister and her family, who had emigrated to San Francisco years earlier.

“I had no idea what I’d do for a living, but I had a family on my shoulders and needed to work. I was 37. With ZERO ENGLISH. I walked along Geary reading my flashcards, looking for a job,” Yury recalls. “I saw a store at Geary and 8th: The Lighthouse.”

Yury’s voice chokes with feeling as he describes walking into the store. “I only could say: ‘My name is Yury. I come from Russia. I need job. I know lights.’”

The proprietor gave him a piece of wire, cutters, and a socket, and told him to connect them. The result was a job offer to start the next morning at $5 an hour. “I was so happy I cried; the store opened at 9. I was there at 8.”

He learned English on the job. “I didn’t know ‘dozen’, a lady wanted a dozen bulbs, I had to ask ‘what this means: Dozen?’”

He knew all the technical aspects of the business, but learned how to write an invoice, order parts, use catalogs, work with vendors, and bid at estate sales and auctions. In the evenings, he picked up work cleaning and polishing crystal lights and chandeliers in the homes of customers he met at the store. 

Liya passed her barber license exam. She worked out on LaPlaya Avenue cutting hair for $5 an hour, in the Russian community. Finally, they’d saved $400, enough to open Liya’s Barber Shop in Richmond. Liya retired in 2016 due to back and shoulder problems. 

Yuri became the manager of the Lighthouse. Then, in 2003, he took over the lease of an antiques store on Divisadero and opened his own shop.

Customers followed him and new ones found him.

His worst times were during the COVID lockdown. 

He was closed for three months, then snuck back to work, meeting clients at the door, taking their lamps and fixing them alone in the back. But money was tight and, as Yury says, “I worried myself into a stroke.”

He made a full recovery, and his daughter set up a GoFundMe campaign. Here is a typical comment that came with a $1,000 contribution:

Yury is a true artisan, and his small, neighborhood business is a gem. We must support local craftsmen like Yury … they are a disappearing breed.

These days, he works six days a week, eight hours a day, and spends his free time with family: A 46-year-old son, a 41-year-old daughter and an 18-year-old grandson.

And, while his love for Liya is undiminished, he has an additional passion: America.

“This is a country that gives you a chance,” he says. “America gave me a way of life, freedom to work as I wanted. Just don’t be a lazy man. Money is lying on the floor; just work and pick it up!  I adore this country.”