rowing

Perhaps you have seen her playing the violin on the Main, on the Rowing, getting off the boat red-faced and tired from rowing, but happy and smiling, or in the building of the Plovdiv University, where she is a third-year student at the Faculty of Law. Linda Boneva is only 21 years old, but she successfully combines violin, boating and studying at university. And not only does he combine them, but as an academic rowing competitor he has more than 50 gold medals (with silvers and here and there a few bronzes are more than a hundred), he plays the violin at family celebrations and company parties, and as a future lawyer he wins first places in intercollegiate competitions.

First is the violin. He studied at the Music School from the first to the tenth grade. At the age of 14, he went out for the first time to play at the Main Theater. In addition to the classic works of Vivaldi, Johann Sebastian Bach, Giuseppe Tartini and other classics, he also plays more modern music – “Despacito”, “Signorita”… “There is something for everyone”, smiles the girl. In the meantime, he also started rowing.

“I wanted to practice something. I had a lot of energy, and with the violin you can’t move around much. You stand and play for hours. I had to spend that energy somewhere. I used to go running on Grebnata, I did several laps. A canoe-kayak coach had noticed me there. He stopped me and told me I was tall and built to row. So I started canoeing in 2012,” recalls Linda. After two months, however, the summer vacation began and they left with their parents for the pretty village of Enchovtsi in the Trevne Balkan, where they have a house. She spent the whole summer there, started the new school year and after a few months Linda went to the boats again. “I missed rowing. So I accidentally ended up in the hall where the academic rowing machines were.

I just messed up the door

I went in and instead of canoeing again, I signed up for academic rowing,” the girl recalls with a laugh. That’s how she met her first coach, Elena Penelova, and has been registered in this discipline for 10 years.

Two years before graduating from the School of Music, Linda had to make a difficult choice. “I started the 10th grade and when I saw what was ahead of me, I realized that I couldn’t combine the boat and the violin – we had a lot of extra subjects and requirements to participate in an orchestra or other activities related to playing. I had no time left for rowing, which had already become my passion. I went to competitions, won medals. For 4-5 years I tried to combine the two things and it worked for me, but I realized that this time I had to choose. And so I decided to transfer to Sportnoto,” the girl recalls. She gets worried when I ask her if she has participated in bigger competitions, if she has any medals, how many there are.

“I haven’t counted them. They are a lot. From republican and international competitions, from Balkaniads, I have participated in European championships. I was also in the national team for a while.

My medals are over a hundred

I have more than 30 gold medals from national championships. I had one year when in one competition I participated in 6 disciplines – three in the senior age and three in the women’s. Then I took 6 gold medals from only one republic. From international regattas, I have more than 20 gold medals,” says the girl.

Despite the sports successes, Linda did not leave the violin either. Over the years, many people recognize her. They like her and start inviting her to play at family holidays – birthdays, name days, engagements… They often call her when someone wants to surprise a loved one, a colleague or a teacher.

“With the violin at the moment I earn my living, I pay my fees for the semesters. Until recently, my parents had difficulties, and they work far from Plovdiv, so for a long time I have mainly supported myself”, says Linda. However, rowing is what brought her many emotions. She can’t say which she would prefer if she had to choose again today, because both have helped build her as a person.

“Both the violin and the boat taught me many things. Both helped me in my personal development. They also helped me not to go down the wrong path, because around me many of my classmates smoked, drank, had a different idea about the good things in life, which were not my vision of development. If I hadn’t been playing the violin for so long, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do the rowing where it’s wanted

not only physical but also mental endurance.

And at the Music School, I had to play for about 4 hours every day, which is quite demanding for an 8-9-year-old child. However, it teaches discipline and has helped me in rowing, where it is also very important. Thus, both the violin and the boat build character, teach order, to be able to arrange things not only for the day, but also for the following days, weeks”, says Linda.

In the beginning, when she started practicing while playing, she found it difficult. Not combining things or not being able to take time, but from the pain in the arms. By the time she got used to the oars, her palms and fingers became blistered, which burst and injured the fingers with which the next day she had to press the strings and hold the bow. She gritted her teeth, played the whistle and then… again on the boat.

“Over time, I started to get used to it – I couldn’t stop playing, I couldn’t give up rowing either, but you get used to everything if you have motivation,” the girl recalls. She did not leave the violin and oars even after she was accepted to the Faculty of Law of the University of Plovdiv.

“I need the violin at the moment so that I don’t have to look for another job with fixed hours that would interfere with my studies. For sports, although I like it very much, I don’t have much time left anymore. Now I go rowing less often, but I participate in national championships.

I try to keep fit

– I run, I go to the gym, from time to time I go into the boat. I have the State Republican Championship – State Individual Championship coming up in June.

“At the Faculty of Law, we very often have colloquiums, the exams are difficult, the material to be studied is voluminous, but for now I manage to combine all three. In fact, the discipline that violin and rowing taught me also help me in law,” the girl is convinced.

And they not only help her, but also motivate her to participate in competitions at the university. Together with her colleague, they won first place as a team in the prestigious Moot court competition, organized by the European Student Association ELSA, where they measured their knowledge with students from Sofia University and UNSS.

The girl remembers her decision to study law with a smile. “We have no lawyers in the family.

The choice was mine personally

Since I was little, I loved watching movies where the main characters were lawyers. I told myself that I would like to do something that would protect people. I don’t know how important this was to my choice, but in the 12th grade I had to decide what to study and I didn’t think much about it,” the student recalls about the reasons for choosing the difficult profession. She says that after she graduates, she would not refuse to work “pro bono” for people who do not have the financial ability to seek their rights, even though they are in their right and would win the case. However, they are stopped by the thought that if they lose, they will lose money that they don’t have and can’t get back.

“I was brought up in the family with a sense of justice. People should know their rights, look for them and defend them. I wish to live in a normal society where rules and laws must be followed by everyone,” the girl is convinced.