Less and less of them remain. Those who survived the terrible blockade of Leningrad, and after the war won in sports arenas. On Victory Day, she remembers the history of the USSR champion in figure skating, who participated in the first World Championship for Soviet figure skaters in Paris.
Two years ago, I congratulated Maya Petrovna Belenkaya, one of the strongest figure skaters in the country in the 50s, on her 90th birthday. She twice became the winner of the USSR women's championship, and together with Igor Moskvin won these competitions twice. Seven more times, the Belenkaya/Moskvin pair won medals at the All-Union Championships. Although the Leningrad schoolgirl received her first medal not for sports achievements.
If you go through the square opposite the Yubileiny sports complex, you will find yourself on an inconspicuous street, of which there are many on the Petrograd side. Maya Belenkaya lives here. She spent all the days of the blockade in Leningrad. “We lived in the same area, but in a different house,” recalls Maya Petrovna. “It was bombed in the first days of the war. My mother was the manager of the house, and they provided us with housing. even awarded the medal «For the Defense of Leningrad». Sports awards were later.Maya began figure skating before the war. In the first blockade winters, of course, there was no time for sports. There were still battles in the vicinity of the city, and in Leningrad in 1943 skating rinks were opened in the Central Park of Culture and Leisure on Elagin Island and at the Iskra stadium on the Petrograd side. Schoolgirl Maya Belenkaya went there to train.One of her coaches was the first Russian Olympic champion Nikolai Panin-Kolomenkin. When he wrote the figure skating textbook, which became a guide for many generations of coaches, photographs of the performance of compulsory figures were needed for illustrations. Best of all in Leningrad they were performed by Belenkaya. Yes, and looked at the photo, like a foreign movie star. In Leningrad, she was considered an icon of style.
In the first post-war championships, Maya competed in both singles and doubles competitions. Her partner was Igor Moskvin. “At first, I liked being a single skater more, but Moskvin was more experienced and wiser,” Maya Petrovna said on her 90th birthday. “He foresaw how figure skating would develop. We were pioneers in the international arena. A trip to Paris was then unrealizable a dream for the Soviet people. We knew almost nothing and learned a lot on a whim.»
Although the first teachers of the Leningrad figure skaters were experienced couples from the socialist countries, primarily world champions Marianna and Laszlo Nagy from Hungary. Belenkaya calls the Czechoslovak figure skater Yarmila Kenigova her friend. Maya was also friends with Lyudmila Belousova.
While still an active figure skater, Belenkaya began to train. Among her first students was 15-year-old Lesha Mishin. Even for those times, he came to the section late, but, as his first coach recalls, he was simply created for figure skating. “Alexey had great jumps, natural artistry and a special gift for communicating with people,” recalls Belenkaya. “He knew how to think and analyze everything that the coach said, he absorbed ideas like a sponge. .
Mishin himself recalled his first coach as a charming, sensitive and caring woman who at times reminded him of his mother. He admitted that he would never have become a figure skater if he had not fallen into the hands of Belenkaya. Although he refuted the assertion that it was Maya Petrovna who persuaded him to switch to pair skating, citing as the main argument the presence of a huge number of beautiful girls from which you can choose a partner. After all, Igor Moskvin created the couple Tamara Moskvina/Alexei Mishin.
Maya Petrovna was engaged in active coaching until the age of 70, judged figure skating competitions, advised her students, many of whom also became coaches . She raised two daughters, one of whom now lives in Moscow, and the other in the USA. And, despite the huge number of sports awards, he considers the main medal in his life «For the Defense of Leningrad».