Lazareva, Elena Borisovna

Elena Lazareva was born in an intelligent family. ^[2]

After graduation, Elena continued her education at Riga Technical University . She graduated from the same magistracy in business economics ).

In 1995, she began working at the Ilguciems family enterprise. In the company she performed the duties of an accountant, chief accountant and financial director. Together with her mother, the creator of the Union of Belarusians of Latvia , she joined the public work and joined the Belarusian Belarusian Association of Entrepreneurs “Belarusian Way”. ^[3]

As the head of the Union of Belarusians of Latvia, Elena Lazareva initiated a number of major projects of national importance.

Days of Belarusian Culture

The annual Days of Belarusian Culture are held in dozens of cities where Belarusian and Slavic national-cultural societies work. The festival covers all regions of Latvia:

Latgale ( Daugavpils ^[4] , Rezekne , Kraslava ^[5] , Ludza ^[6] , Zilupe , Wilani , Dagda , Preili , Lebanon ),

Kurzeme ( Liepaja ^[7] and Ventspils) ,

Vidzeme ( Jekabpils ),

Zemgale ( Jelgava )

and the capital of Latvia, Riga ^[8] .

The purpose of this event is to support the national diversity of Latvia, which is the country's wealth, to acquaint youth with the culture and history of neighboring Belarus, for which thematic musical and poetry evenings ^[9] , tours of Belarusian groups are held as part of the Days. Belarusian societies from different regions actively communicate with each other, share experiences, participate in concert activities: for example, the Zavirukha ensemble from Jekabpils regularly represents the Belarusian diaspora at the Latgales vainags festival of national cultures ^[10] in the border Indra .

Edition of the Latvian-Belarusian Dictionary

In 2010, Lazareva led the project of the Union of Belarusians of Latvia (SBL) to publish the first Latvian-Belarusian and Belarusian-Latvian dictionary with a volume of 40 thousand words ^[11] , with a circulation of 500 copies. The author of the dictionary, Doctor of Philology, a member of the International Association of Belarusians and the chairman of its branch in Latvia, Mirdza Abola (1923-2007), has been collecting materials for him for over 40 years. After her death in 2007, the Union of Belarusians negotiated with the heir for publication, finally reaching an agreement on transferring exclusive rights to copyright to the Union. In June 2010, the SBL transferred the materials of Mirdza Abola to the Institute of Language and Literature of the Belarusian Academy of Sciences, where they conducted scientific processing, entered all the draft materials into the computer and checked the Belarusian part. The editor-in-chief is the candidate of philological sciences Ivan Luchits-Fedorets ^[12] . The publication was supported by the Riga City Council , Iļģuciems and JSC Liepajas Metallurgs .

The dictionary was presented in the regions of Latvia ^[13] , transferred to libraries and educational institutions. For the publication of the dictionary, the Union of Belarusians of Latvia was thanked by the President of the Republic Valdis Zatlers ^[14] .

Competition "Belarusians of Latvia: past and present"

Since 2014, the Union of Belarusians of Latvia, at the initiative of Elena Lazareva, has been conducting a competition of research works “Belarusians of Latvia: Past and Present”. In 2017 and 2018, its winners visited Brussels at the invitation of the European Parliament deputy Andrei Mamykin . Most of the contest participants are attracted by the nomination “Personality in History”, the second most popular coverage of historical events, and the third “Belarusian traditions of my family” ^[15] .

Over the years of the competition, more than 60 works have been submitted to it, which are annually issued in the form of collections.

Children and Youth Contest "Rising Stars of Latgale"

In May 2018, Elena Lazareva, in cooperation with the International Talent Center, organized the Rising Stars youth contest for children in Latgale , in continuation of the idea of ​​an adult competition held in Riga under the patronage of musician and enlightener Mikhail Kazinik ^[16] . All his diplomats received permits for free participation in the Rising Stars in Riga in February – March 2019, a video of the best performances was sent to Moscow, where the Vladimir Spivakov charitable foundation organizes an annual competition of young musicians. The International Talent Center awarded the most original performances of the competition program with tickets to Hollywood , to the World Olympics. Laureates of the competition were honored at the opening of the Days of Russian Culture in Rezekne .

The main prize of the first contest “Rising Stars of Latgale” was awarded to Caspar Bachkurs from the Maltese School of Music in the Rezekne Region. Silver was from Timan Pugachev, a pupil of the Rezekne Music School, Zane Ludbarzhi , and bronze from the violin quartet led by Rita Zueva ( Malta ) ^[17] .

The candidacy of Elena Lazareva was nominated by the Union of Belarusians of Latvia in 2011 at an extraordinary parliamentary election on the list of the political association “Concord Center ” in the Latgale constituency. She received the support of voters and was elected in the 11th Saeima ^[18] by the sum of the points she won, including the “pluses” put to her ballots - by their number (7901) she is in fourth place on the Consent list ^[19] . In the 11th Diet, Lazareva worked in the budget and financial commission and the audit commission. 11 Diet - fiscal and audit. Based on her proposal to the 2014 budget, the Kraslava School of National Minorities “Varavīksne” received funding for equipping elementary school classes in the amount of 20,000 euros ^[20] .

In the elections to the 12th Saeima , the Consent party in Latgale gathered fewer votes, and Elena Lazareva did not go to the Seimas, however, in the summer of 2017, when her party member Andrei Elksnins was elected to the Daugavpils City Council, Lazareva takes his place in the 12th Saeima.

He works in commissions on labor and social issues ^[21] , on citizenship, migration and social cohesion, and is the deputy chairman of the parliamentary group for cooperation with Belarus .

During her work in the 12th Saeima, she submitted a number of amendments to bills on these topics and defended them from the rostrum of parliament ^[22] .

Education in Russian

When, in October 2017, the Ministry of Education of Latvia, headed by Karlis адadurskis, suddenly proposed to transfer secondary education only to the Latvian language ^[23] and significantly reduce it in primary and primary schools, Lazareva became one of the active opponents of this idea in the Sejm. She filed more than ten amendments to the draft laws “On Education” and “On General Education”, which mainly provide for control of the quality of education, assistance to local governments in implementing new educational programs and training teachers, ensuring freedom of private schools and universities, which also fell under the bans of the ministry .

“Bilingual education is an achievement of Latvia, and not a temporary phenomenon. The culture and education of national minorities is part of the cultural heritage that the state must preserve and develop. ” Elena Lazareva , deputy of the 12th Saeima ^[24] .

Lazareva drew attention to the fact that the bills passed by the parliamentary majority contradict Articles 13 (1) of the General Convention for the Protection of National Minorities and Articles 1, 91, 105, 112 and 114 of the Constitution , which may lead to legal disputes both in the Constitutional Court and in European authorities.

Lazareva initiated a number of deputy requests to the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) on the allocation of European funds, monitoring the quality of education, training for schools, optimizing the school network, which in rural areas will accelerate the outflow of the population. From the answers it turned out that the reforms are proposed and implemented without scientific justification and regular research that would prove their effectiveness and necessity.

On March 8, at a debate in the Sejm, the nationally oriented deputy Janis Dombrava accused Lazareva of violating the oath of the deputy (which refers to the obligation to protect Latvia and the state language - Latvian) and should be deprived of her mandate or even put on trial for her statements in defense education in Russian ^[25] .

On June 21, 2018, the Consent party filed a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court to repeal the unlawful amendments to the laws On Education and General Education, which Elena Lazareva signed with other deputies. On July 26, the lawsuit was accepted for consideration ^[26] .

Latgale Language Protection

When discussing the draft law “On Education”, Elena Lazareva and Janis Tutin submitted amendments to Article 9, Parts 1 ¹ and 2, providing for the possibility of teaching the Latgalian language in schools and teaching in the Latgalian language. However, already during the discussion in the Seimas commission on education, its chairman Aldis Adamovich said that for this there are no teachers, no teaching aids, no resources. Minister Karlis Shadurskis generally called Latgalian "relict" ^[27] . The amendments were rejected by the majority of parliament.

Accessibility of Medicine

Lazareva’s amendment on the accessibility of medicine to the law “On financing health care” was adopted by the Sejm ^[28] . The amendment made by her that at least 40% of the funds allocated to health care should be directed to the remuneration of medical personnel is rejected by the Coalition Council .

Lazareva objected to the concept of healthcare proposed by the government coalition, which actually cuts off about 300 thousand people from medical care ^[29] due to the fact that this assistance is linked to the payment of taxes. Thus, the reform further increases the burden on personal expenses, while in the OECD study Latvia is already identified as a country where the patient co-financing of medicine is disproportionately large (over 40%). Low solvency of the population leads to the fact that well-equipped Latvian hospitals operate at 2/3 of their capacity.

Together with public organizations of cancer patients, Lazareva is seeking to increase funding for innovative methods and drugs for treating cancer. She disclosed data from the Ministry of Health on the actual spending of funds for cancer care: in fact, two-thirds of the money went past the previously planned target ^[30] .

Lazareva advocates the investigation of the e-health project, for which 11.1 million euros were spent over 10 years, of which 10 million were allocated by the European Union, and the system turned out to be inoperative ^[31] .

Ending Emigration and Youth Employment

Elena Lazareva is sure that employment problems need to be addressed in the regions and through the creation of new jobs, and not through consultations with people from "risk groups" ^[32] . After analyzing both models, she pointed out that the government spent 54.7 thousand euros per person through its structures to solve the problem of youth unemployment through a “consultative way”, and creating a job costs 40-45 thousand, and the first one gives a short-term, and the second is a long-term effect. One of the reasons for youth unemployment is the lack of any professional skills, poor career guidance, so state funds should be spent mainly on this, as well as the organization of practice and subsidies. TED jobs for young people taking their first steps in the profession ^[33] .

Cultural Development

Elena Lazareva, as a member of the board of the Union of Belarusians of Latvia, is a member of the Advisory Committee of Representatives of Non-Governmental Organizations of National Minorities under the Ministry of Culture of Latvia and considers the support of national-cultural societies as one of the methods for developing intercultural dialogue, social cohesion and civic activism, which is three times lower in Latvia than in developed countries EU (only 9% of the population is involved in it versus 25% in the West). However, the government from year to year only imitates integration programs, allocating 30 thousand euros per year from the total budget of 14.7 million (2019) ^[34] . The lion's share of the money will go to strengthen Latvian.

Father - Boris Akimovich Piskunov, rocket engineer.

Mother - Valentina Aleksandrovna Piskunova, civil engineer, one of the leaders of the Riga Trust of large-panel house building. It is noted by the city authorities for the introduction of new series of large-panel houses in Riga. In 1991, I founded the Belarusian building materials trading company I торговлеuciems, which has been successfully operating on the market for more than 25 years ^[35] . Then she entered the society of Belarusian culture “Pramen”, soon leading it. She began to publish the newspaper of the same name (1994), and then contributed to the creation of Belarusian cultural societies and national creative groups throughout Latvia. Thanks to the authority of Valentina Alexandrovna, in 2003 Latvian societies merged into the Union of Belarusians of Latvia ^[36] .

Husband - Yuri Lazarev, mechanical engineer. The Lazarevs have three children: son Egor studies at the RTU Faculty of Civil Engineering , daughters Anna and Yana - members of the Latvian rhythmic gymnastics team, prize-winners of international competitions, chose the University of Latvia to continue their education.

Brother - Andrey Piskunov, Founder and CEO of Vaben.

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