Nina Pavlova

Nina Vladimirovna Pavlova is a Russian writer, chemist, and teacher.

Nina Vladimirovna was born on July 15, 1983, in Moscow. In early childhood she dreamed of becoming an Indian—she carved arrows, shot from a homemade bow, and wore a headband with pigeon feathers. She also loved books: she reread all the legends and fairy tales of American Indians and was fascinated by the works of Astrid Lindgren; the tales about the Moomins by Tove Jansson remain among her favorites to this day. At the age of ten, Nina discovered Nikolai Gogol and, during the summer holidays, reread everything she could find in the library.

As a teenager, her favorite authors were Anatoly Alexin, Mikhail Bulgakov, Alexandra Brushtein, Valentina Oseeva, and Anatoly Rybakov. She was also interested in detective fiction and enjoyed untangling intricate plots, details, and the psychology of the characters.

At school, Nina was an excellent student and received a gold medal “For Special Achievements in Learning.” During her studies she wrote short stories and even dreamed of becoming a student at the Literary Institute. However, her love of chemistry prevailed, and in 2000 Nina Pavlova entered the D. I. Mendeleev Russian Chemical Technology University. After graduating, Pavlova continued her studies in postgraduate school, defended her Candidate of Sciences dissertation, taught students for some time, and wrote scientific articles.

At present, Nina Vladimirovna works as a senior researcher at the N. L. Dukhov All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Automation. She is engaged in analytical chemistry, determining the quantitative and qualitative composition of solutions, organic substances, powders, and metals.

Nina Pavlova believes that she was prompted to take up writing by her acquaintance with the popular Polish series of short stories for preschoolers, “Lubimy czytać” (“We Love to Read”). While often visiting Poland and being fluent in the language, she bought up all the books from this series that she could find. Among them were short detective stories, tales about ghosts, witches, and mysterious castles. These stories were very much loved by her son Fyodor, and to please him Nina Vladimirovna began writing very simple detective-m