The swimming coach from Zainsk preserves Georgian traditions and instills in children a love of sport.

      On the Day of National Unity we tell the story of Zay sports school coach Nana Davitashvili, originally from Georgia, for whom Zainsk has become a second home.

      She was born and raised in sunny, hospitable Tbilisi and has been living in Zainsk for more than thirty years. Having moved in 1989, Nana Davitashvili brought with her a warm Caucasian heart, a love of sport, and family recipes for Georgian dishes.

      “I did sports from childhood: swimming, gymnastics, and track and field. My coach in Georgia was Russian; at training camps we lived for months in Russia and Belarus, at school we learned Russian three times a week, but after the move it was still difficult to understand the language,” the coach recalls.

      The difficulties were not only in communication. At first life far from relatives was hard, but over time Zainsk became her real home. She tries to visit her homeland every summer.

      “If before I missed Georgia while here, now when I go there I begin to miss Zainsk,” the coach admits. “Living in Tatarstan is good. I admire the traditions of the peoples of the republic.”

      In Tatarstan she finds a surprising similarity in hospitality, warmth of spirit, and love of generous feasts to those of her native Georgia.

      Even her family’s story is a continuation of the great friendship of peoples that she has carried through her life. Her son married a Tatar woman from Naberezhnye Chelny, and in their family the traditions of the two peoples have blended harmoniously.

      Nana Davitashvili’s home is a place where borders between countries and cultures fade. Friends and relatives—Tatars, Russians, Armenians—gather around one table. She generously treats guests to khinkali and khachapuri, delights them with homemade sulguni cheese made according to old family recipes. She herself happily discovered Russian pelmeni and manti; among her favorite dishes is the Tatar belyash.

      Over more than two decades of working as a coach at the Zay sports school, she has not only taught boys and girls to swim—she has become for them a guide into a world of strength of spirit, discipline, and victory. Her pupils, children of different nationalities, repay her with boundless devotion. They greet her in Georgian, and on the children’s drawings she carefully keeps they confess their love in her native language.

      “The main thing in a coach’s work is to love children. If you don’t love children, there’s no place for you here,” she says.

      Nana Davitashvili is demanding at training because she believes in each of her charges and knows that true love sometimes shows itself in the strictness that leads to victory.

      Irina Smirnova

      More news about the event:

      Zainsk swimming coach preserves Georgian traditions and instills a love of sport in children

      On the Day of National Unity we tell the story of Zay sports school coach Nana Davitashvili, originally from Georgia, 14:13 04.11.2025 Novosti Zainska - Zainsk

      Zainsk swimming coach preserves Georgian traditions and instills a love of sport in children

      On the Day of National Unity we tell the story of Zay sports school coach Nana Davitashvili, originally from Georgia, 14:13 04.11.2025 Zainsk-Inform - Zainsk

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