She liked her life in the capital of Belarus. She had her career, family, friends and metro. It was love which brought her to Poland. She has been living in Pruszcz Gdański, Pomerania, for the last ten years. She travels by train to her beloved Gdańsk. Meet Rita, a painter.

She comes from Minsk. Graduated from the city's academy of fine arts, monumental and decoratory painting. She had worked there as an assistant for one year. "I knew already that I would spend my life with a Pole, Szymon, but I wanted to try work at the academy", she says.

It wasn't her first contact with Poland. A few years earlier, she was on a scholarship called "Gaude Polonia" founded by the Polish Ministry of Culture. She hadn't planned to live anywhere else but her home country. "I thought I would be travelling like every artist, being on a residency from time to time. But life proved me wrong. A year after that scholarship my Polish husband drove at my flat with his lorry and we moved. We were choosing between Gdańsk and Wrocław. Both cities are convenient for my husband's job as he travels." Rita's husband is an organ master - he builds organs for churches in Poland and abroad.

Rita admits that she has not been seeking contact with a lot of Belarusian citizens in Pomerania. She wanted to get to know as many Polish people as possible, blend in the society. "I never tried to get rid of my accent, I like the fact that my consecutors recognise that I come from somewhere. But I really wanted to know how people here live, what interests them." She wanted to know more about Pomerania to the point that she finished a course for tour guides in Tricity and sometimes we can meet her guiding a grup of tourists. "The moment I saw Gdańsk tenements, I wanted to know why they look like the ones in Amsterdam. I think this knowledge also gives me more opportunities as an artist."

The architecture of Gdańsk is present in Rita's works. In her paintings, often made with a rare technique traditionally associated with writing icons - egg tempera - she depicts Gdańsk monuments. "It's hard not to paint Gdańsk. It's very charismatic", she admits.

"I feel good here because Gdańsk is a multicultural city where one can meet people from different places. A lot of Gdańsk citizens are from the late Eastern Borderlands."

Rita Stashulionak exhibited her paintings in Germany, Norway, USA and Brasil. We can see them in Pruszcz Gdański, at the gallery "Szary Ganek" owned by Olena Ulianova who is the heroine of the last episode of Multucultural Pomerania online..

The episode with Rita premieres on 21st June at 7:00 pm!