My name is Anna Koroleva. I was born and have spent the bigger part of my life in the city of Minsk, Belarus. Among her other documents, my mother still keeps my first drawing, the Portrait of a Rabbit, a piece of yellow paper with some expressive squiggles and circles on it.
Then I attended an art studio in our Pioneers' House, a children's art school, the Art College named after A. K. Glebov and finally the Academy of Arts which then was humbly called the Byelorussian State Institute of Theatre and Arts. The actors used to run along the corridors there singing, shouting and dancing thus emancipating themselves, while the artists would move quietly and introversibly along the walls to their studios preferring to sit at their easels and draw instead of studying such subjects as the Scientific History of Materialistic and Philosophical Atheism.
Many years had elapsed and I returned to the Art College as a tutor. However, I got tired of the creative tasks' monotone and the indecent fee.
So, I left the College and became an independent artist. This is my way of life now, and I must admit I do like being an artist that way. I paint, draw, illustrate books and I am happy.