Pelageya
Andreevna Raiko

(maiden name Soldatova) was born in Tsyurupinsk, passport – may 15, 1928, but actually in April.

At 22, she married Nicholas A. Raiko (died December 1995). The family survived mainly due to his garden, sometimes laboring for seasonal work on the farm or for hire. Polina and Nikolai brought up two children: Allen, who was born in 1951 and Sergey born in 1953. About 1954, at the new site near the river, built a house. And who knows, would take Polina in its 69-a-half years for the brush, if not fractures of destiny.

In 1994 there was a terrible tragedy: died in a car accident beloved daughter Alena, leaving to her husband two sons and Polina Andreyevna. In December of the following year her husband died, Nikolai. And two years later, Sergei gets into the colony. But for Polina Andreyevna already not, it was a tragedy: even before Sergei had almost wrecked the house, drank all that a little bit was valuable, even the cable outlet. And three years of deprivation of liberty is not returned to his normal way of life: with the return of Sergei pogroms in the house resumed. A few times he even struck his mother with a knife wound, and scary to think what would it all have ended, if in 2002 he died from cirrhosis of the liver.

The first composition on the walls of the house appeared in the autumn in 1998, three years after her husband's death, when Sergei was in prison. Polina was alone, tried to collect my thoughts, to restore order in the economy. "Still need to make up and to color the walls, - remembers Polina - here and think, let's see what I draw, what would the shower was more fun." But the joy did not come each new song was born with tears in his eyes: "not to cry, I began to sing. Standing on the table, draw and sing, the house was empty". The neighbors thought grandma was crazy, but many people liked her paintings.

Not paying attention to your age, grandma Raiko continued almost every day to go to a part-time job for her, fed and given some money. A small pension (74 hryvnia per month, about $ 15) Polina spent on brushes and paint. For her paintings she used the simplest and cheapest paint that I bought at a local market enamel PF paint floors, fences, doors. For 4 years these colors covered the walls, ceilings, doors, song, out on the street on gates, fences, garage doors. The artist Polina even started to take orders from her friends painted small areas of walls in houses, stoves, gates and even the monuments in the local cemetery.

Gradually, the house of Polina Rayko has become a place of pilgrimage. For several years it was visited by many journalists, art lovers, and tourists. But painting Polina Andreevna money was not brought: a few of the guests knew to help her grandmother that she had had the opportunity to buy paints and brushes. When in 2003 she met the creative team of the Kherson Center of youth initiatives "totem", Polina was kind cheerful and full of creative desire. The edition of this album was planned at the time of her life, but, unfortunately, 15 Jan 2004 Polina Raiko did not.

Creativity

The creativity of Polina Rayko differs from the classical naive – rather, it pulsates somewhere between self-expression and outsider art naive. She did not have an art education is that art lessons at school that in her memory traces didn't leave. It was not in her house and the TV, which probably helped to preserve the amazing sincerity and purity of the images, which served the surrounding world and his own memories. Her imagery combines Christian, Soviet, pagan symbolism, the artist, of course, never thought of her calling to creativity Polina called the gift of God for her suffering and no easy life.

Source: Polina Raiko. Directory robt "Road to Paradise" Kherson 2005. Staryi "Naddnepryanskoe", Center molodini Netiv "TOTEM"