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Polina Raiko lived all her life (1928 – 2004) in the Ukrainian town of Tsyuryupinsk. Shortly before her death, she was found by Totem Group activists, who preserved her house and published a catalogue of her works to let the world know her story. Pelageya (Polina) Andreevna Raiko (born Soldatova) was born in Tsyuryupinsk in 1928. At the age of 22, she married Nikolai Alexeevich Raiko. The family survived thanks partly to their own vegetable garden and occasional employment as seasonal workers in a kolkhoz. Polina and Nikolai brought up two children: Elena, born in 1951, and Sergei, born in 1953. In 1954, they built a new house on a new place beside the river. Polina may very well have never taken a brush in her hands if it were not for the sudden tragedy that befell her in 1994 when her beloved daughter Elena was killed in a car accident. She still had her husband and two sons, though not for long. The following year, in December, Polina's husband also died. Two years later, her son Sergei was brought to correctional facility. This last occasion, however, may have been for the better as Sergei had almost ruined the house and drunk away all their valuables, including their electrical wiring. Still, after three years in prison, he resumed his pogroms in the house. He even went as far as to attack his mother with a knife and wound her. This story could have ended very differently had he not died from cirrhosis in 2002. Polina‘s first compositions were painted on her walls in the autumn of 1998 when Sergei was in prison. Being alone, Polina tried to somehow put her thoughts together and to establish order. "Anyway, I had to make up and to color the walls," Polina said, "So, I decided to draw something to take joy in it.“ However, there was no joy; every new composition was born with tears, "To keep from crying I began to sing. I stand on a table drawing and singing. My house is empty." Her neighbors thought that granny went mad, but many liked her drawings. In spite of her age, granny Raiko continued to work for food and some money. She spent her miserly pension (74 hryvna, which is approximately equal to 15 USD) on brushes. For her paintings Polina used the simplest and cheapest paints, which she bought at a local market: enamel PF, which is usually used to paint floors, fences, and doors. Over the course of four years, these images that covered the walls, floors, and doors of her home soon went out into the street, covering wickets, fences, and garage gates
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