Elena

Elena Petrova was born in 1939 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and grew up when food was scarce. She began playing piano at age six and says “music was the one thing that did not lie,” and she later studied to become a classical pianist. After the fall of the Soviet Union, she moved to the United States in 1992, became a music teacher, and raised one daughter, who now lives in Austin. At Belmont, Elena plays the piano in the common room every Sunday afternoon, sharing pieces from her past. Elena says art taught her how to be strong through change and loss. She misses the old world she left behind, but finds peace in sharing her culture through music. When asked what it means to be human, she answers, “To create beauty from pain,” and her life, from post-war Russia to the piano at Belmont, shows how she has tried to turn hardship into something beautiful.