Maria Paseka, 2012 and 2016 Olympian, experiencing difficulties renewing her passport to work in China

2012 and 2016 Olympian Maria Paseka is experiencing some difficulties in her everyday life in Russia.  She returned from China, where she had been working as a coach, a few weeks ago.  The Chinese team has offered her more work, but she can’t get her passport renewed.  Read her words via TASS : 

‘Gymnast Paseka received an offer to work as a coach in one of the Chinese sports schools

💬 “I received an offer to work at one of the Chinese public sports schools,” said Paseka. “I haven’t decided anything yet, but life is developing in such a way that I’ll probably stay here. I haven’t been able to get a passport for months now. They’re just returning it to me.” and they write a refusal, and I don’t understand the reason.”

In October 2022, Paseka, together with another Russian gymnast Tatyana Nabieva, left for China to work with that country’s women’s artistic gymnastics team. In August, after the expiration of the contract with the Chinese Gymnastics Association, they returned to Russia.

💬"Almost two months have passed since my return from China, I am gradually forgetting the phrases in Chinese that I managed to learn there. I really enjoyed working there, the girls are very efficient, they want to train, their workload is very heavy. We even had to stop a little. As for Chinese food, it’s light and suits me very well, but Russian food makes me feel like I’m plump,” added Paseka.

“I want to emphasize that I did not betray my homeland, as some wrote on social networks a year ago. It’s just not always easy for former athletes to immediately find work in Russia. But I personally am not yet ready to announce that I have finished my career,” concluded the TASS interlocutor’