Women who change the world around them: V International Relay Festival PRO Women “Community Power” was held in Smolensk

On September 12, 2026, the hero city of Smolensk lived in a special rhythm. On this day, the V International Relay Festival PRO Women “Community Power” was held here. It was not just an event from a weekend poster, but a large-scale point of assembling women’s potential – an event that united the participants of the global movement in a single burst of inspiration and action.

The idea of such an international day was born by Kamila Ubushaeva in 2022 as a bold experiment. Today it is one of the main traditions of the community, allowing women to feel their belonging to something more than just a local club of interests. For Smolensk, this festival became a real entry point into the large women’s movement. Hundreds of guests were able to see from the inside how the community works, get acquainted with the active participants of their city and understand the simple truth: the environment changes everything.

The anatomy of the holiday

The organization of the holiday in Smolensk was engaged in a team of about thirty people under the guidance of curator Natalia Shestyuk. For them, the preparation of the festival has become a powerful tool for personal growth and testing for strength.

- There are many of us, but each of us has our own talents. And organizing this holiday helped us uncover them. We enjoyed being able to realize ourselves in such a big project, Natalia shared.

There was tremendous work behind the scenes. Coordinating dozens of contractors, coordinating timing, and working with speakers and designers required management accuracy.

- For me, the most difficult thing was to put together a huge number of processes and people. Everyone on our team had their own area of responsibility, and as the chief curator, I needed to see the whole picture: coordinate, keep in mind a lot of details and make everything come together on the day of the festival.

But the result exceeded expectations. The guests were waiting for a rich and diverse program that combined creativity, fashion, health and business communication.

The contest “Miss Festival” – a competition of charm and talent among the participants – evaluated not so much external data as the depth of personality and charisma.

Defile of designers, where models on the catwalk were themselves representatives of the community. It was a manifesto of natural beauty and self-confidence. The festival was “Islands of Health”, as well as a bright fair of craftsmen, where you could buy unique handmade products.

The big concert, which became the emotional culmination of the evening, brought together the best creative forces of the region on stage.

- And the most interesting thing was to see how what existed for several months in the form of ideas, discussions and plans, gradually becomes a real big holiday, recalls Natalia Shestyuk.

Portraits of an era

Every community is primarily people. The festival in Smolensk gathered an incredibly colorful kaleidoscope of fates, professions and characters. Each of the heroines of this day is living proof that the feminine energy of creation can transform reality.

Natalia Shestyuk is a vivid example of how experience and wisdom can become the foundation for completely new beginnings. As an active leader of the PRO Women in Smolensk, a curator of the Chinese direction and the main organizer of the last festival, she brings to the movement a unique energy of consistency.

Natalia came to the community relatively recently, in 2024. Her journey was not rapid: at first she simply attended meetings, looked at the atmosphere and people, and only then allowed herself to fully join this flow. By that time, she had more than twenty years in the family business. Despite the enormous experience, Natalia realized that it became too boring to deal exclusively with this business. The children had grown up, the basic family tasks had been fulfilled, and the soul demanded a new challenge.

- I love organizing events and getting to know the community has given me the strength to realize myself. I met different people and listened to their experiences. They looked at me from their side, and I began to discover some hidden talents in myself.

It was the support of the members of the community that became the catalyst that helped to unleash her main passion – China. For more than fifteen years, Natalia has been working in the procurement sector with this country, but before joining PRO Women, this deep knowledge remained only part of the professional routine, a closed archive. In the community, she was literally forced to look at her experience from a different angle:

- I learned about this country, and as a result, I started a group called Morning Silk and started talking about it. Then I organized a tour of authors. I often go to China and I think I know some places better than the locals. The PRO Women community encouraged me to develop these projects.

Today, Natalia not only shares stories about the culture and traditions of China, but also brings the dream of many into reality, organizing author’s tours. For her, PRO Women has become a space where the professional background becomes a mission.

Aesthetics of harmony

If Natalia is the architecture and strategy of the festival, then Tatiana Matenkova is its pulsating creative life. At the Fifth Relay Festival, she acted as a curator of the concert participants. Despite the fact that Tatiana has not been active in public work for a long time and only recently graduated from the school of regional leadership, she coped brilliantly with the organization of the site. Her task was to fully accompany the artists: from collecting phonograms to controlling music. Thanks to her professionalism, even small changes in the program looked as if they were originally planned.

The rich life experience of Tatiana allows her to organically exist in several professional roles at once. Tatiana Matenkova is the director of an IT company, realtor, makeup artist and beauty consultant. Tatiana has been working in the beauty industry for over a decade. Her journey began with a chance visit to a master class, after which she felt the need to share the “magic” of transformation. She has participated in Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia and Smolensk Fashion Week.

However, the main core of Tatiana’s activities remains a social mission. She is convinced that beauty will save the world, but only if it is understood as inner harmony. Tatiana admits that behind her a huge number of free lessons, she receives sincere pleasure from how girls become more confident. It’s not a matter of a particular profession – be it a makeup artist or a director of an IT company – but a desire to help and make the world a better place.

Digital watercolor of the ancient city

Maria Neustroeva is a person who amazingly combines the cold brilliance of digital technologies and the warm glow of live art. Her journey began at the IT-cube educational center, where she was once a diligent student, and today she herself transfers knowledge to others, becoming an employee of this center. But Maria's world was never limited to code and algorithms.

Her life is creativity in motion. She draws inspiration from music, Zumba dance and painting. A vivid manifestation of this versatility was the relay festival fair, where Maria debuted as an artist-illustrator. The story of her work sounds like a true urban tale:

- I love Smolensk very much and walk around fairs a lot. Once I wanted to put all the sights in one picture, to create a fabulous collage. Maria managed to capture the soul of the ancient city and transfer it to the fabric of souvenir t-shirts and mugs. The birth of the first job was completely spontaneous:

- So this idea was born, the inspiration came, and I began to draw with a pencil in the album. And I painted it for a very long time.

Six months of painstaking work with a simple pencil turned the sketch into a finished work. Then the magic of digital transformation began: the sketch moved to a Huawei graphic tablet with a stylus. Today, the collection includes four works, each of which tells its own story about the Smolensk streets. For Maria herself, participation in the fair was an important step.

Architect of social elevators

The voice of Marina Popova, director of the ANO “Vector Youth Entrepreneurship Development Center”, adds depth and social weight to the festival. She has been involved for the third time:

- It is so emotional and drive that the received charge of power remains for a long time in your aftertaste. I always have a sense of pride, belonging, awareness that in Smolensk there are a huge number of beautiful, intelligent, professional women who are ready to bring new meanings, experience and resources to your life.

Marina looks at the community through the prism of social capital:

- In the community of PRO Women of Smolensk I have been 7 years. Over all these years, I have formed a stable social capital – professional and personal contacts have expanded. And no matter what problem or project I come to my co-communists with, I have never met negative or criticism, I receive spherical feedback from a large number of women who have experience, knowledge, connections in various areas of our lives.

She formulates the main law of modern women's associations:

Women are the guardians of tradition and wisdom. Women are creators, you just need to help everyone find what makes you unique, beautiful, in demand.

Energy of ownership

The festival died out, the tents were dismantled, the music died down. But the effect of it does not disappear with the cleaning of the sites. It is preserved in chat rooms where joint projects are negotiated; in the burning eyes of women who first took the stage; in four prints of Maria Neustroeva, which are now worn on T-shirts throughout the city; in the plans of Natalia Shestyuk’s author’s tour.

As one participant pointed out, “Today it’s not just walls, it’s a home filled with the power of communities.” This energy of participation is the main result of the fifth relay festival. The house is built, and its doors are open to everyone who is ready to take responsibility for their lives and support the one that goes by.