This is Elen – Elen, rather than the more typical Elena – a somewhat unusual female name in Russian. “It was actually a mistake on my mother’s behalf that happened while she was young and still living in Russia,” Elen explains, “She’d read the book Hélène written by a French author and I was to be named after the book’s namesake main character. When we moved to Germany in the late Eighties, my name was incorrectly translated as ‘Elen’.” Elen was…
