Welcome here!
This is a simple landing page for the people who likely met me for the first time elsewhere in the real life, rather than in blogs or SM.
All professional contacts are restricted to LinkedIn
- and there I accept invitations only from professionally relevant
contacts, either with whom we worked in the past or work now, or those
promising and interesting for the joint work in future. I am subscribed
to a number of discussion panels on LinkedIn, but do not initiate
discussions there myself: no time.
You can address me Lena, this is my usual name, though legally I am Elena (and even Elena Aleksandrovna Lebedeva-Hooft). Because of my maiden name (Lebedeva) and the Rusian origin - I started to use LenaSwan abbreviation for my e-mail addresses since the time e-mail appeared in this world - and this LenaSwan abbreviation became somehow a sort of a brand (and now even my business name).
I am blogging for years and on different issues, mainly - to have a sort of my own diary that could be read by many friends all around the world. Being educated as a teacher of Biology in English, I later did some professional ornithology studies and even defended my PhD, and then worked for 10+ years for bird conservation and nature conservation (mostly in Russia, but not only); for some time that is still very dear to me I worked also as an Outreach Coordinator of the Training Center for Indigenous People of the North, Siberia and the Far East. It explains I have enormous network of colleagues and friends, and after moving to the Netherlands for family reasons - I still remain involved in some projects, but sure also keep the valuable contacts. Blogging for me is primarily a way to communicate with friends and colleague - given the physical distances that separate us these days.
I wrote a lot in Russian blogging area (from 2006 till now) still mainly at http://lenaswan.livejournal.com
Until early 2022 it was the best place to tell daily life stories with lots of photo's, to discuss some interesting events in economy, politics or in just middle life. There are tags in English in this Russian blog, but for the rest - it is mostly just in Russian. Some of the posts are copied in the back-up blog on Dreamwidth.
I started to make some notes and to share interesting things also on Facebook, where unknown people can easily subscribe and follow - and there I communicate mostly in English, but then preferebly with people I know in real life, and even then - not with all of those who are known in real life. My profile on Facebook.
Since 2017 the new and developing hobby is the old varieties of fruit (mostly apples but also pears, plums etc.); for these notes I made a separate space on Medium: https://medium.com/@LenaSwan
Since the start of the war of Russia against Ukraine I shifted a lot of attention to my Twitter account (reading / following the news and global political agenda): https://twitter.com/LenaSwan
I am not using blogging or Facebook or Twitter for work - still most of my translation and interpreting and small project work come via the good old colleagues. But if you think I can help you one way or another - please send me an e-mail or DM in Facebook.
This post will be updated, and sooner or later I finally make my own website (laughing at this recurring statement now in february 2023),
Stay connected,
Lena
