Podareva, 28, was born in the hometown of Russia's famous poet Sergei Yesenin. She has loved poetry (诗歌) since her childhood. Growing up, she wrote many poems in both Russian and English. After she came to China to study Chinese in 2013, the world of Chinese poetry opened up before her.
Podareva has had colorful experiences in China in the past ten years. She has won prizes in many Chinese poetry writing competitions and published her own Chinese poetry collections. Her most unforgettable memory is that one of her Chinese poems written in 2020 was turned into a song. And even better: She sang it herself.
"Some people may praise China in a direct way, but I prefer to express my feelings about the country and describe the friendship between China and Russia through different styles of poems," Podareva says.
Podareva has always wanted to be a cultural ambassador (使者) between the two countries. In 2020
she began to make videos and shared them online. Besides sharing Chinese poems she had written, Podareva also produced videos about cultural differences between China and Russia. Sometimes she made humorous videos to explain the misunderstandings that Chinese people have towards Russians.
Besides writing poetry, Podareva has also been painting. She doesn't think the two art forms are different from each other. "Wang Wei was a famous Chinese poet, and he was also a painter," she says. In December 2022, Podareva held an exhibition in Shanghai with 66 of her paintings on show.
"All art is a way for the creators to express their spirit," Podareva says. "I hope to create a website in Russia and introduce China—through my poetry and paintings-to Russians, so that the friendship between the two countries will be much deeper."
