TH E P O I N T O F VI E W
FIRST TIME
A UTH O R9 A N A M A RI A SO B I E R A J SK A d A D RI A N A P RO STE K P H OTO S9 SŁUE WI EC RAC E O URSE
CHAMPION!
Interview with Champion Sanzhar Abaev
How long have you been in Poland? I have been here for four seasons now. What is your story about coming to Poland? I worked in Russia, I really wanted to come to Poland and see what racing was like here. I heard about them from Lila Reznikova, who had been in Poland for many years and we worked together in Russia. However, it was coach Sergey Vasyutov who helped me with everything. Did you know each other before? No, we did not know each other before but I contacted him on the Internet. Sergey comes from Russia so I wrote to him. Do you remember your first impressions after coming to Poland? It was my dream, I wanted to see Polish racing. At the beginning I was afraid, a new country, different faith, lan-
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guage. But on the first day, when we arrived in Poland together with Sanzhar Altynbekov, we met Marlena Stanisławska, who gave us shelter during the first days of our stay. All she knew about me was through Lila Reznikova as they are friends. As I mentioned earlier, Lila and I had worked together in Russia. I calmed down because Lila assured me that Marlena would always be there to help us. The interesting thing is that we only spoke our native language and Russian. Marlena didn’t know to speak Russian but to be able to communicate with us, she learned very quickly. Is there any person you learned the most from after spending 4 years here? In Kyrgyzstan I took part in 20 races, from the age of 6, then in Russia and then I came to Poland. I didn’t think that I would be able to ride here as well, but it worked out. I first came here to work for trainer Małgorzata Łojek,
