OLGA BOLTNEVA

In our society, there are topics that are considered indecent, inconvenient, and embarrassing. Taboo topics. One of these topics is infertility. In medicine, infertility refers to the inability of a couple to conceive a child in childbearing age. It so happened that this topic became the cornerstone of our family. For 8 years of marriage, we did not become parents, and the doctors diagnosed me with "Infertility of the 2nd degree".

"Infertility 2" is a story about Love. The diagnosis that doctors gave me was the starting point in the search for the meaning of marriage. Awareness of the true meaning of love. After all, the family is not a reproductive function. This is primarily the Two.

Water is Earth’s most common substance. It accompanies every moment of our lives. It is in water that a seed comes alive, and so does a fetus. The amniotic fluid nourishes and protects it.
Human beings grow in water, which later on turns into a hazard. It requires one to learn from scratch how to live in it. To remember.
To me, water is rebirth. I needed to come back into the water to be born again. To discover and accept myself. To get rid of the complexes and the timidity that developed under the pressure of environment.
Water lets me feel myself and my body. Each movement brings certainty and serene power. Dipping into the water grants a stillness of thought, a silence. Then I notice the sound of my breath and the heartbeat.
I enjoy being in the water, but each time I enter it I overcome discomfort. It takes the body a split second to get used to. Swimming requires shrinking into oneself first. Force the knees up against the belly, take a push off the wall – only then you can straighten yourself back. This is the moment that brings rebirth. The tension reveals every muscle and all of the movements, and you can feel the water parting in your wake. You merge into it. The fear and the timidity are long gone.

About 5-7 million children yearly get into hospitals in Russia. Every second child under 15 has once been at hospital. The majority of seriously sick children spend at hospital long years. For any child staying at hospital is a great stress: intensive therapy, complicated operations, long periods of rehabilitation. For the treatment to be successful a child should be in a positive psycho-emotional mood which is very difficult to achieve in a hospital environment.  In this situation Hospital Clowns come to help.
Project “Hospital Clowns” is a presentation of an unusual profession of a hospital clown. By creating positive emotions through clownery, game and art therapy Hospital Clowns foster rehabilitation of children at in-patient treatment. A Hospital Clown is near a sick child at the moments of great stress: first appearance at hospital, painful procedures, preparation for an operation and right after it. A Clown is capable to raise a child’s mood and vitality.
The history of Hospital Clowns movement in Russia has started with a certain volunteer, who strived to give children the warmth of his heart. Later associates came to help.
Currently hospital clowns are professional actors who get remuneration for their work.  Before entering a child’s ward, they undergo special training and also attend professional development, nursing, pedagogy and psychology courses.
At a first glance it seems easy to be a Hospital Clown. But in reality accompanying a child during an illness is a very painstaking and hard work.  Serious physical and psychological work of a professional team is behind the bright and merry Clown’s appearance. They bring back positive emotions to children and their parents and help believe that a smile and laughter can conquer the most serious illness.

Every man has a place which is connected with his life. Where you feel at home. Where you want to retune again and again. This place is always with us, no matter where we are. For my grandmother is a dacha where she lives every summer. Connecting with nature, she opens to the world, and the world opens to her. It’s time of amazing encounters and discoveries.