She studied at the children’s art school in her hometown of Kirovsk, then received the profession of graphic designer at Bobruisk State College named after AE Larina, commonly known as “tag”.
The young specialist was sent to the House of Crafts in Klichev for the creative strengthening of the team. And six months later there was a sharp turn – Elena was transferred to the Regional House of Culture, where she headed the children’s department. And it turned out that she was just as interested in working with children as in painting. She received her higher education in absentia at the Belarusian State University of Culture and Arts with a degree in management of the social and cultural sphere. With such baggage, it was possible to get an excellent job in Mogilev or Minsk. But the lights of the big cities did not attract him. She remained faithful to her cozy small town and her second vocation – she works as a teacher-organizer at Klichev Secondary School No. 2 named after FI Kovalev.
Concerts, contests, vacations, sports competitions, rich leisure for children – all this today is the service field of activity of Elena Machekina. And also something you can’t write in the plans: keeping the memory of those who died in the Great Patriotic War, raising patriots. Elena is sure that most people are patriots of their homeland from birth, you just need to develop this feeling from childhood. Each of us, he says, carries social memory, and all of our customs and habits are written down almost at the genetic level. Together with high school students, he often goes on bicycles to the outskirts of Poplavsky Forest, where in the fall of 1941 the Nazis shot more than 300 Jews. There is a monument to the victims of the Holocaust, which is taken care of by the guys.
- From time immemorial, Jews lived in Klichev on Zolotoy Street, later renamed Proletarskaya, – says Elena. – When the Nazis occupied the city, they chased everyone in the ghetto, then took them to the forest on the outskirts of the village and shot them. According to eyewitnesses, for several days the earth in the ditches into which the executed were thrown moved, but the Nazis posted a guard, who stood all this time, preventing the villagers from approaching and to help the injured.
Another memorial site that school children regularly visit is the monument to the four female doctors brutally tortured by the Nazis, whose only fault was to have treated Red Army soldiers and helped the wounded. The teacher-organizer with his students not only takes care of the burial places, but also tries to learn as much as possible about everyone who is buried there. Memory must be alive…
Elena teaches school children kindness, compassion. When the school took over the patronage of the nursing home, not all the guys understood why it was necessary – to spend time and money on “foreign” old men and women. Teenagers are sometimes selfish… How to explain with words, with personal examples, so that they understand, feel? And how nice it is when a boy or a girl suddenly has feelings from the heart.
So it was with one of the “incomprehensible” high school students. Having earned money in the summer, he once approached Elena and said: “I know that the nursing home needs an electric kettle. I want to buy it, but don’t tell anyone, that it’s a surprise.”
In her free time, Elena likes to paint, most often landscapes, they were exhibited in the regional museum of local traditions.
Elena Machekina’s landscapes do not linger here. She played some works between volunteers, two canvases went to Moscow
- As a rule, I do not represent a point on the map. On the contrary, my paintings are a collective image of the whole amazing Belarusian nature, – Elena shares her creative look. – I often go for walks with the guys, go fishing with my husband. Everything I see settles in my memory, then the traces of the images appear in my head.
Elena’s landscapes at home never linger. The author raffled some of her works among volunteers, others she presented to many friends and acquaintances. Two paintings went to Moscow – a cityscape and a still life with peonies, which she asked to paint for her daughter, who left for the Russian capital, a resident of Klichev. Elena also commissioned posters, illustrations for children’s books. - Some works are written for months, others – quickly, literally a few days, – she admits. – I don’t know how it works, probably, sometimes the muse visits …
Tatyana Beloborodaya, principal of Klichev Secondary School No. 2, named after the Hero of the Soviet Union Philip Ivanovich Kovalev, says that Elena will find an approach for any child. Even preschool children, who have come on an excursion, forget their pranks and listen eagerly when Elena Machekina explains simple but very important things: at school where many of these children will soon sit at their desks, there has children who truly love their loved ones. , their land, remembering their famous compatriots. This is where the Homeland begins…
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