Kseniya Valakhanovich

Ksenia Leonidovna Valakhanovich is a Belarusian Russian-language writer.

Ksenia was born and lives in Minsk in an educated family: her parents are mathematicians, her grandmother was an honored lawyer, and her grandfather served for some time as Minister of Justice. Ksenia was the only child in the family. “I had the most ordinary happy childhood. With semolina porridge with lumps and soda from a vending machine, disappearing in courtyards (until they called you in!), with perpetually scraped knees and elbows… With the first Disney cartoons (I was breathless with delight at such beauty!) and the first Snickers bar — shared with my mother, once a month, only after payday… With the first Barbie-like doll, only her knees didn’t bend and there was a bald spot under her hair (if you lifted it) — but she was the most beautiful in the world, because she was mine! A wonderful childhood, in short!”

She graduated from school with a gold medal. The family had high hopes for their only daughter and wanted her to become a lawyer, but Ksenia decided to apply to the journalism faculty.

Ksenia Valakhanovich graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Belarusian State University. As a student, she worked as a model and even took part in the “Supermodel of the Year” show. After journalism school, she went on maternity leave and gave birth to a daughter.

Known as a children’s poet, she did not begin by writing children’s verse at all. After her daughter was born, Ksenia started writing short stories and women’s lyric poetry. “I didn’t start writing for my daughter,” Ksenia clarifies. “I was creating poems for myself. At some point I began to lack joy.” However, according to Ksenia, women’s lyric poetry did not bring her joy, while children’s poems began to warm her. “And then, when I started receiving warm responses, I realized that they were warming someone else too,” says Ksenia. She first published her poems in a collection from the Stikhi.ru portal, for which she had to pay. But neither the collection nor the book presentation attracted the attention of publishers. Another platform, a free one, played its role.

Then, in the early