Tchaikovskaya Elena Anatolyevna - an outstanding figure skating coach. She has achieved fantastic results over her long career, but does not stop there. She has many plans and goals for the coming years.
Parents
Elena Anatolyevna was born in 1939, in Moscow. Her family was very creative: both father and mother worked as actors in the Mossovet theater.
Tchaikovsky’s mother is Tatyana Golman. She came from an old German family that settled in Russia in the sixteenth century. Before the revolution, it was a prosperous clan with good incomes (according to Tchaikovsky, they had factories, porcelain factories, several mansions and estates). Father, Anatoly Osipov, was a native Muscovite.
Tchaikovsky’s parents played on the same stage with such great artists as Faina Ranevskaya, Rostislav Plyatt, Lyubov Orlova. Theater director Yuri Zavadsky was very protective of his troupe and provided all kinds of support to the artists, especially during the war.
Childhood
Tchaikovskaya Elena Anatolyevna was born a year and a half before the start of World War II. With her family, she lived in Sokolniki, in a tiny little room inherited from her relatives by her mother.
Since her mother was an ethnic German, her little Lena was deported from the city in 1941. They took directly from the cottage, without any warnings, did not give the opportunity to collect things. With a baby in her arms, Tatyana Mikhailovna had to shake for several days in an old train car to get to Kazakhstan. They were settled in Chimkent. This link lasted almost seven years.
Like other inhabitants of the country, they experienced a lot of suffering. They were saved from starvation only by the fact that their mother managed to grab an old tobacco pouch with which old gold coins were stored. She exchanged them for bread. So they managed to hold out until 1947.
All this time, Elena was separated from her father. He stayed in Moscow, performed along with acting teams at the front.
After the Great Victory, the authorities did not raise the question of the return of Tatyana and Elena. If it were not for the request of the director Zavadsky, perhaps they would have remained in Kazakhstan. But Yuri Alexandrovich raised all his ties, and at the beginning of 1947 mother and daughter returned to Moscow. True, unknown people lived in their apartment; the family had to crowd in a semi-basement dormitory of the theater, which was located near the Hermitage Garden.
Lena spent a lot of time in the theater with her parents. From morning till night I watched rehearsals, and then watched performances without stopping. She even played a small role in the Brandenburg Gate and starred with her father in the same film.
Everyone predicted a brilliant career for the girl. Faina Ranevskaya was especially happy for her. But fate turned out quite differently. Elena Tchaikovsky’s disease intervened. She returned from Kazakhstan with tuberculosis.
Doctors could not do anything, but they advised to start playing sports outdoors. By that time, the Osipovs had moved to Begovaya, the new home of the Mossovet Theater. Nearby was the stadium of Young Pioneers, where Tchaikovsky Elena began to ride. She had figure skating training twice a day. Of course, in the open air. After a year, everyone forgot about the disease.
Youth
The years of youth at Elena Tchaikovsky were extremely intense. She loved to learn, loved figure skating, did not forget about the parent theater. She always did everything, and she liked it. In addition to these classes, Lena was seriously interested in music, played the piano. But the living space of her family did not allow to put this tool, and the girl often came to visit her friend and neighbor Alexei Shcheglov, the son of Irina Wulf. For hours they sat at the piano and played music. It was in their house that Lena became better acquainted with Ranevskaya and other artists who had a great influence on her.
Sports career
Sport became the main thing in the life of Lena. She quickly gained momentum, improved her technique and began to compete. She was very lucky with the coach. They became Tatyana Tolmacheva, one of the founders of the school of figure skating in our country.
By the age of fifteen, Tchaikovsky Elena, then bearing the name of Osipov (on her father), became a master of sports. She won the country's singles dancing championships three times. At seventeen, she became the owner of a gold medal in single skating. After this USSR Championship, Elena decided to put an end to her sports career.
At the crossroads
How many years Elena Tchaikovsky had heard about the wrong decision, about the unfair early departure from the sport, only she knows. But the fact remains: at seventeen the girl was at a crossroads. What to do next? She was even going to go to mehmat, because she loved to study, and she always liked mathematics. But, as always, the case helped. An ice ballet from America came on tour to Moscow. Elena was amazed at what she saw, she was completely delighted. It was then that she had the idea to organize such a show in our country. Only there was one but. Specialists capable of making such a performance on ice simply did not exist. Then Tchaikovsky decided to enter GITIS.
Higher education
She entered the ballet department, which she successfully graduated in 1964. Her course was led by the People's Artist of the USSR Rostislav Zakharov. The course was very strong, many of her fellow students subsequently became leading choreographers in theaters of different countries.
Elena Tchaikovsky, whose photographs began to appear in newspapers, became the first choreographer for ice ballet.
Coaching
After graduation, Elena did not immediately succeed in realizing her dream of ballet on ice. She became a coach of professional athletes. Since 1964, the girl has sculpted real champions for her homeland.
The first serious work experience was for Elena a couple T. Tarasova and G. Proskurin. When she turned twenty-one, she came to them as a choreographer. Despite the fact that it was figure skating (dancing on ice), the athletes spent more time on the floor. Tarasova recalls that Tchaikovsky taught them completely unfamiliar movements.
At this time, their coach Viktor Ryzhkin left the couple, and Tchaikovsky herself began to put them a program. That's how she turned from a choreographer into a coach.
In 1965, their first European Championship was held. Later, Tchaikovsky will have other students, and they will bring her an unprecedented triumph, but it is precisely that exit on the ice that Elena Anatolyevna will always remember. Of course, the guys did not win anything, but they began to work even harder and harder.
But then the unexpected happened: Tarasova received a severe shoulder injury and could no longer claim high results. Tchaikovsky has new promising students.
First champions
Tchaikovsky became a coach of Pakhomova and Gorshkov in 1967, when they had just become a couple. Initially, the process seemed very difficult - not only the partners got used to it, but also the coach. But soon the first successes appeared and the light of hope dawned.
Given that, in fact, they were the first Soviet dance couple, their second place at the 1969 World Cup was a real breakthrough. And a year later, Pakhomova and Gorshkov together with Elena Tchaikovsky celebrated their victory in Europe and the world.
Thanks to the coaching and choreographic skills of Tchaikovsky and the diligence and talent of athletes, such a sport as ice dancing has changed dramatically. Academics and classics were replaced by emotional folk dances. The pair became 1976 Olympic champions.
For success in working with Pakhomova and Gorshkov, Tchaikovsky became an Honored Trainer of the USSR.
The next champions for the coach were Linichuk and Karponosov. They won the European and World Championships twice, won gold medals at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid.
Elena Tchaikovskaya also contributed to the development of such an athlete as Maria Butyrskaya. Initially, she trained with a student of Elena Anatolyevna Vladimir Kovalev, then with Viktor Kudryavtsev. But she lacked the "ballet" elements that Tchaikovsky helped her to deliver.
Butyrskaya became the first world champion (1999) in the post-Soviet period of our country.
Ice performances
In the last years of the existence of the Soviet Union, most sports coaches left for the West to work not only on enthusiasm. Elena Anatolyevna stayed. Its purpose was to prevent the existing canons and traditions of the Russian school of figure skating from falling apart. She stayed at home to defend the honor and glory of our athletes.
In the 80s and 90s, she worked a lot with professional skaters, putting entire performances on ice. A ballet was organized under the name "Russian Geeks", the leader of which was Elena Tchaikovskaya. For several years, children performed successfully at venues in Europe and Russia.
Departing for some time from direct coaching, Tchaikovsky set up amazing circus programs on ice. This creative activity helped her to look differently at figure skating in our country. And, of course, this experience helped her in her work as head coach of the Russian national team. She held this post until 1998, and quite successfully. Two winter Olympics ended with brilliant results.
Little Tchaikovsky
In 2001, the coach’s most cherished dream came true - she was able to open her own figure skating school. She received the name "Tchaikovsky Skate." Tchaikovskaya waited for this event for twelve years (while the building was under construction and the paperwork was drawn up).
Elena Tchaikovskaya, student children and adult skaters (for example, Margarita Drobyazko and Povilas Vanagas) are happy to conduct their training there. This school has a clear goal - starting with the basics, the coach brings his athlete to the championship. It is very important that a "bench" appears, since only in conditions of fierce competition are the talents of athletes revealed.
The sports school is attended by more than five hundred people. In addition, there is a free group for disabled children, the initiator of which was Elena Tchaikovskaya.
The biography (children-athletes in it always occupied a leading place) of this amazing woman allows us to conclude that the coach really cares about his job.
Tchaikovsky’s school has already raised several champions, including Kristina Oblasova and Yulia Soldatova.
Other activity
Elena Tchaikovskaya, whose student children 11 times became the first in the competition, no doubt, had a lot of knowledge and thoughts. She decided to share them with the reader. Three books came out from under her pen, where she describes the main points in the education of young skaters. In addition, the coach created a figure skating textbook.
The book "Six Points" describes the entire history of this sport in Russia, starting from the nineteenth century.
Political activity Tchaikovsky Elena shows occasionally. For example, in 2012, she became the confidant of presidential candidate V.V. Putin.
Personal life
The personal life of Elena Tchaikovsky is not in the public domain. It is known that she was married twice. With the first husband Andrei Novikov, the heroine of our story was familiar from youth. They got married when Lena studied at the institute. At twenty-one, she became a mother: the couple Igor had a son. The son of Elena Tchaikovsky graduated from the Institute of International Relations.
The second husband of Elena Tchaikovsky turned out to be a sports journalist. He was introduced to Elena by the first spouse. Here's a joke of fate. After the competition, he brought her a journalist for an interview. It turned out to be Anatoly Tchaikovsky, a correspondent from Kiev.
In 1965, the couple got married. Anatoly moved to Moscow, began to work in the "Soviet Sport". Their marriage was on the verge of collapse several times. Anatoly was too hot-tempered, oil added to the fire that he, so to speak, ended up on foreign territory. But Elena Tchaikovsky, a biography whose personal life is demonstrated by all her wisdom, was able to save her family.
