In Turkmenistan, there is hardly a person not familiar with the workы of Mamed Mammadov. He was one of the so-called magnificent seven artists of the sixties, whose names are associated with one of the brightest periods in the history of national painting.

Nevertheless, this article is not about the artist, but about his muse, who devoted her life to the master and his creative work.

Honored Artist of Turkmenistan Galina Alekseevna Mamedova was born in beleaguered Leningrad in 1943. A child of wartime, she did not know anything about the distant sunny land, until during her years of study at the Leningrad State Art and Industry School she met Mamed, at that time a student at the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.

A swarthy-faced guy came to Leningrad to learn more about the secrets of painting. An orphan raised in an orphanage, Mamed Mammadov dreamed of learning and using the acquired knowledge in his homeland, in Turkmenistan.

It was he who told young Galina about sunny Ashgabat, introduces the girl to the Turkmen culture and invites her to the City of Love as his wife.

For a girl from a Leningrad family, marrying an Asian guy meant to admit the Asian culture, traditions and customs. Of course, it was not an easy step, but Mamed had a hard time as well. Having fallen in love with a Russian beauty, he had to introduce her to his relatives and get approval.

Deciding that she would not be able to live a day without her love, Galina packed her things and went to distant Ashgabat.

“It was 1964. I was sitting on a plane and through the window I saw the Caspian Sea, the open spaces of the Karakum Desert, the slopes of the Kopetdag Mountains for the first time. Ashgabat greeted me very warmly, reminding me of Luga, a town near Leningrad, with an atmosphere of benevolence. It seemed to me that I, as in Mandelstam's poems, returned to the city that is very familiar to me ...”

In Ashgabat, the Mamedovs lived as a united family, and their children were born there. Thanks to her husband, Galina discovered the original and wonderful world of Turkmen culture, plunging into which she no longer wanted to return back to Russia.

On occasion of the 100th anniversary of Ashgabat, in 1981, the artist created the sketches of festive emblems that adorned the city. Today, the Turkmen capital is preparing to celebrate its 140th anniversary. Having lived there for more than half a century, to the question: “Would you change anything in your life?” Galina Alekseevna replies: “No way, Ashgabat is my Motherland!”.

Svetlana CHIRTSOVA