One day Tatiana Vladimirovna Dushkina from Olympic center phoned to us. She trained a group of children. They needed gymnastic bodysuits for girls. Irina's father ordered it in his company manufacturing sports goods. We spoke about RSG and went to open call. Nobody usually goes to open call without invitation. But we ventured and appeared there.
There were only kids in the group, but Irina wanted to go there and meet Irina Aleksandrovna Veener. We would not pretend to come to her. It was Lavrov Aleksandr Vladimirovich the director of the center. He saw Irina and said: "I take her". The first man in RSG told us: "She's talented". Irinka could do anything in order to hear these words. She began to train. Katia Sirotina produced new programme. All the time Irina was thinking up something new, new bonuses, new elements. She was happy. She was scintillated, she had courage. She was running to training, talking with admiration about it. She recalled girls from Taganka and missed them. Somebody from them phoned her and she was glad to those rings. Now they disappeared from her life and nobody replaced them. She have been always repeating: "Old friend is better than new two".

 

01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

 

Today Irinka thanks awfully to her first teacher and trainer Zinaida Nikolaevna Chagina. Zinaida wanted to "knock in" to Irinka so much; she was so patient and faithful. Thanks to all those who believe Irina and who have believed her. Thanks to those, who inspired her with confidence and said golden words: "Talented!". It's necessary to say this, don't be afraid that it could bitch up. It's not truth!
At the moment Irinka works with the main person in her life (together with mother, father, brother and grandmother) - teacher, trainer, psychologist, regardful and advertent woman Irina Fridrikhovna Matveeva. It's not easy for Matveeva with Irina. And for Kazakova as well. Irina Fridrikhovna says: "I do not want relationship between trainer and gymnast but their partnership".
Sometimes it's possible to reach. And performances are brilliant with such harmony.
Now Irinka tries to work without trainer. Independence fails me, she says. It's hard. She believes that after 2 years they succeed with this talented trainer.

 

Finally Irinka found a person whom she believes and who believes her. A person who assured her in right of her last choice, inspired her with confidence, and the most important, was on common ground with her, found that "key" for her heart and soul. Two Irinas found each other. They met on All Fools' Day, the 1st of April. It doesn't matter: you know traditional luck of fools!
And the study began. Just the study, because she had to learn to train, to be sports professional. Sometimes she had to "re-learn" what is much harder that simple learning as you know. At the same time the trainer used absolutely new methodology of training, special physical education and exercises for extraordinary flexibility.
Irinka began to progress very fast, at the short time she learned to perform completely new elements. Soon first sport successes came. Many Russian and foreign trainers and specialists noticed her, spectators liked her a lot.
We shouldn't say now about some reasons due to which it became unfortunately impossible to continue training in the excellent Olympic Center hall. The group of gymnasts being futureless in the past and interesting in the present decided to leave their "alma mater" and stay with their teacher SIMPLY OUTSIDE.
They began to look for new training base. Former gymnast, now choreograph Liubov Viktorovna Lomakina joined our collective of "not talented and unclaimed ragamuffins". She was in the very hard situation in her life at that moment, but she helped us to find new accommodation. We were lucky: Lomakina got new acquaintance - advantaged husband and wife from elite suburb of Moscow. They wanted she trains their children. Thus we got new place for whole our group. Then our new hosts (high level sportsmen in the past, now fortunate businessmen) saw girls' self-devotion to training and high level of trainers and began to build grandiose plans. It was idea to build new sports complex and organize new sports club there, because nobody could participate in competitions without state in some sports organization.
Time was passing, competitions were coming, but plans were staying only plans: probably our patrons changed their thinking about children's destiny or they got another problems etc. Anyway we had to look for new place.

Where did we get into? We had to rent training hall in some Mytyschee school, where we were going every day except Sunday. The way was not easy: one hour by metro except jitney, which we could wait for almost 30 minutes. Approximately one way took 2 hour.
Conditions were not congenial. There was damn cold indoors and injuries followed. Carpet has never been there. Dirty rubbers surface with schoolchildren's spits and cigarette ends contented us. It was impossible to pirouette there. You can imagine how we have been pirouetting when we were lucky to train on a carpet then: any pirouette was twisting us so we couldn't cope with own body.
School hall was available from 2 p.m. till 10 p.m. Girls had to return home in the nighttime.
Irinka tells: "We often met drunken men and teenagers by the way to bus-stop. It was too unsafely to walk there alone, and we were always going by threes. Everybody had gas-bag, and when we had no them, we were bringing clubs for self-defence. Three armed girls were moving by night town, and we could always properly hit anybody. 2 hour of way to home didn't tired me, in fact I had a time for reading."
Actually at that time all seemed to be OK to us. It was better than nothing, and we were feeling quite optimistically. We cooked many new interesting elements there, trainings were very efficient.