Svetlana: “During one of the evenings in Barcelona Matthew said:”Will you marry me?”
Matt+Sveta=the abstraction art of love Love is everything and that’s everything we know about it. Love is like abstraction art: it does not require the imitation of the visually perceived reality. Sometimes it takes the most unusual forms, very often it give a lot f troubles, joys and pain to the lovers, but people continue to seek for it, overcome all the difficulties on their path, and only in love they find the real happiness. And it doesn’t really matter weather, how many oceans divide you, the main thing is to have the one to fight for. And if absolutely crazy 2010 didn’t make you believe in miracles, we will try to bring some of them right under you New-Year tree. For the first time I met Matt and Sveta in the end of March 2010, when I was working as a shop-assistant in one of the famous retail shops in Smolensk. To tell the truth I have known Sveta since university, we studied together, and one day she said that her fiancй is going to visit her. But the most interesting things in life as usual happen suddenly. Can one say that the food shops in Kiselyovka (the name of one of the districts in Smolensk) are very popular among foreigners? Not very, we can say, but nothing is impossible. The main thing is to know the special places. Are there many artists among those? – Hardly, but according to the author of the “Chronicles of Narnia” C. S. Lewis “miracles can happen, the main thing is to keep you eyes open”. So between the stalls filled with spaghetti and flour I met Matt Anzak.
100 Euro and the lucky ticket We, Sveta, Matt and I, are sitting in the small kitchen of a common multi-storied house in Smolensk, speaking about art, history, symbolism, and just about life. And this conversation could simply have escaped from my memory, if not the atmosphere of this kitchen. I haven’t experienced such atmosphere for long time. There are no passionate kisses or hot embraces here but there are two persons who look into each other’s eyes and fill the space with the ringing feeling of love, all absorbing and healing, soothing and eternal. I’m very pleased to be right here at this very moment. It’s the beginning of April 2010 outside. Matt had already been in Smolensk for three weeks. And now I have a chance to know the lovers’ story. -We have met at one of the dating web sites, chatted via Skype for half a year, and in the end we decided to meet, - tells Sveta.. – I must be slightly crazy to fly to meet a complete stranger in a foreign country having only 100 Euro in my pocket. I have never seen him offline before, and I did not know whether he’s going to meet me or not at all. One can be for or against after-Internet meetings but it’s necessary to acknowledge that they are becoming the integral part of our lives. There is no way back, you will never throw your laptop away. So armed with the Internet promise to meet her at the airport in summer 2009 Sveta flew to Italy and never regretted. -I was meeting her at the Bologna airport, and we both had the same feeling that this is a love at first sight. She said that I had been unshaved. I remember, she said via Skype that she does not like to look people straight into the eyes and in the airport our eyes met and we have been having our eyes glued on each other all the way from Bologna to Ferrara. One can say it was ideal, just like it’s supposed to be: this glance, first kiss…. But I’ll better stop here Venice and the buskers’ festival In Italy Mathew took part in the art-show that took place in the Costello castle in the town of Ferrara, very prestigious festival for artists. And since 32 years the big buskers’ festival have been being held near the walls of the castle (Farrera Buskers Festival). -The show was going on very well, a lot of interesting people from all over the world came here. They all work in different styles that can’t be even imagined at my Dallas. Italians are great, they live with the art and in art, during the festival the life in town slows down: buses won’t go, the trains are always late people kiss each other in the streets… Round the castle there were a lot of musical bands from Scandinavia, Kentucky, Mongolia, they all played interesting music, it’s a nice opportunity to open the different world for you. And at this time a wonderful girl comes to me, visits my show, what can I desire more? – remembers Matt. – And she was so sweet and beloved, so interested in me, it was so comfortable for me to be with her; she wanted to go to Italy with me, where I had some shows. I did not even think she could manage everything; she just came to me two days before the show. Then we rented an apartment in the centre of Venice, just three minutes’ walk from the see, like in a fairy tale. I remembered the beach, sunshine, her, sweet and sincere, how beautiful she was, unfortunately at this time I was a little bit preoccupied with my thoughts for her, what a pity, and now I have no show and I can devout myself to her only. While Matt was talking about the beautiful places of Italy Sveta became very calm and was looking somewhere into the distance thorough the window and her eyes were sparkling with smiles. This particular kind of look was described by the famous Russian writer Turgenev: “Oh, the glance of the woman in love, who will describe you!” - In the reality Matthew turned out to be even better than I expected. And maybe not all of his pictures are understandable to me, I’m not the person of art, more over they are all abstract, but you can take a good look at them and see anything you want. I was delighted by the process itself. When he was painting, he seemed to put together the parts of the painting, - tells Sveta. – But for me he was the most memorable part of this trip. We walked in Venice, looked at each other, ran in the water, played, drank “sangria”, he chased me in the surf-line, this was ideal. I was so relaxed, I forgot about anything in the world.
Russian-American fates Very often life plays cruel games with people, parts their ways, and sometimes it unites the roads of those who were not supposed to meet at a first glance. Just the thing happened with Svetlana and Matthew. A simple Smolensk girl born in Naryan-Mar and a painter from Dallas - what brought them together? Matt always liked Russia, since he had come here in 1992 to study architecture; he was deeply imbued with unusual beauty and strictness of the Orthodox iconography. At that period Matthew found out about the beauty of Russian women and got a dream to find a Russian girl and come back to Russia. His dream has come true. Sveta says, that some very strong but sometimes not identified desire led her to it. This desire became her start-up for learning English seriously and even graduating from the department of foreign languages in the university. Only when Matt appeared in her life all the parts of the puzzle were put together. Her dream has come true. Dreams can come true.
Experiencing Russia Venice was left far behind wrapped in Smolensk fogs and dank spring. And when Sveta got some document troubles that could prevent her from seeing her lover, Matt understood that’s now his turn to go. And he had come to Smolensk. There were also some troubles that could prevent his trip: they didn’t want to give him visa in time and so he threw off one ticket and bought another and just the day his second ticket to Moscow was expiring he got his cherished visa.
Russia was spreading in front of him, and the girl he loved dreamed of waited for him. All the three weeks the American painter tried not only devout himself fully to his beloved but also experience Russia, submerge into it, sometimes quite literally. Matt visited all the museums and art-galleries in Smolensk, he was mostly delighted by the museum of the sculptor Fedor Konyonkov, princess Tenisheva’s estate in the village Flyonovo, Russian churches, the fortress wall. Matthew even tried to experience the real Russian extreme – he dived into the ice cold water spring near the village Nikolo-Yarovnya that territory is going to be the part of the Smolensk Trinity monastery. -My first visit to Russia opened my eyes to the world, my whole mentality had changed, now it is like coming back home, I’m impressed by the art I saw… I like to follow the steps of the artists, absorbing the creative energy of people who worked here. Russian architecture is unique. It has its own energy, that ca not be found in America, - kept saying Matthew during the walk in Flyonovo. – Also in Smolensk I had a unique experience of diving into the cold springs. I used to see it on TV, it seemed so crazy. Now I myself experienced this thing and can say for sure – this is really unique.
Blue sea and Gaudi’s Barcelona After three weeks of walks around Smolensk the lovers parted again. He had flown away, but he promised to come back. Malicious people said, this is the end, but this was just the new page of their relations. In August Sveta went to meet her fate again. This time it was Spain. For a week they have lived in Calpe, the Mediterranean resort. The lovestory continued to develop in the surrounded by numerous blue lagoons sandy and pebble beaches. The most beautiful on Calpe opens from the mountain Peñón de Ifach, where Matt and Sveta climbed to enjoy the sunrise the vast space of the blue-blue sea and the view of the seaside town. -Besides Calpe we rented a car and went to Benidorm and Alicante, where we celebrated my birthday. We were going back by small tram that runs alongside the coast and among the foothills between Alicante and Calpe, - remembers Sveta, - Sometimes you go and see the abyss. Horror. Then we sailed to Ibiza. In San-Antonio there is a street that consists from night-clubs only. And there are also beautiful sunsets here that’s why the locals build special cafes on the best points to enjoy the sunsets above Ibiza. Then the sweethearts went to Barcelona which became quite memorable because of wonderful Antonio Gaudi’s architecture and also by the flood of tourists. -Once we went for a walk and got into rain, we sheltered ourselves under the triumphal arch where Matthew took me in his hands, put me on the rising and asked: “Will you marry me?” Then the couple had a romantic supper in the restaurant, Matthew treated Svetlana with the best wine and the local delicacy – paella that looks like assortment consisting of rice, crabs, shrimps and snails. Now they are making all the necessary documents for Sveta to move to Dallas.
I would fly into the sky Today is the 28th of December 2010. We are talking with Sveta in the Moscow airport “Sheremetyevo-2”. The grey sky behind the window adds little confidence to the thousands of tourists exhausted by waiting. Absolutely incredible weather of this December one more time delays Sveta’s flight to Prague and then joint flight to New-Yeared Paris and then to Amsterdam. But the weather does not scare her. She flies to her lover.