"I love all people": how guide Tatyana Lazareva found her calling at the National Centre RUSSIA

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Finding the right approach to serious experts or inquisitive schoolchildren is a task with an asterisk for any guide. Yet Tatyana Lazareva, a guide at the National Centre RUSSIA, handles it with ease. The secret is that she does not have a "favourite category" of visitors: she is delighted to welcome each and every guest. Tatyana Lazareva shared the story of her work and professional journey with the press service of the National Centre RUSSIA.

Tatyana Lazareva admitted that what she values most in her work is the absence of routine. Each new group of visitors is a new story, the outcome of which cannot be predicted.

"Each time it is like a small lottery. You walk towards a group and you do not know who is standing before you: what expectations the guests have come with, what will interest them most. But from the moment I realise they are my guests, that is it – for an hour and a half to two hours they become like family. I give them my emotions, my attention, my love, as I would to those close to me," said Tatyana Lazareva.

She noted that she always approaches work with children’s groups with great responsibility. The guide is convinced that it is essential not to take the position of a strict adult or teacher.

"If you speak to children from above, they sense it immediately. So I try to speak to them as equals: in the literal sense, I bend down, catch their eye, establish contact. Within a couple of minutes they are already walking beside me, tugging at my sleeve and asking, 'What is this?' 'Who lived here?' They understand that I am genuinely interested in talking to them," the guide shared.

At the end of each tour, she always asks her young listeners what new things they have learned. The children immediately begin telling her all at once. According to Tatyana Lazareva, this is always very rewarding – it gives her enough energy for three more tours ahead.

Tatyana Lazareva did not come to the profession of guide straight away. She explained that she had always read a great deal, loved visiting museums and listened carefully to guides. Afterwards, she would begin telling friends and relatives everything she had learned.

"I could be walking through the city with someone and suddenly say, 'Did you know that Pushkin married Goncharova in this church?' Or I would tell the story of a house, a street, an architect. At first my friends joked about it, but then they seriously began advising me to become a guide – it could not only be them listening to all this!" she said.

The decisive moment came when she saw an announcement recruiting guides for the International RUSSIA EXPO. She had no experience, but she had ability and a great desire.

To ensure that each tour is memorable, the guide constantly studies new information, striving to enrich familiar routes with fresh details. In her view, the same exposition can sound different and reveal itself in a unique way for each guest.

"Some people are drawn to a model, others are most interested in human stories, and others in technology. And you adapt your narrative to the specific people in front of you. That is why it is no surprise that even for one guide there are never two identical tours," she explained.