Authors
Arina Bedrina1; 1 Independant researcher, Discussion
This chapter follows the story of my personal acquaintance with Joseph Brodsky and then Valentina Polukhina and my involvement with analyzing, cataloguing and transporting her vast archive dedicated to Joseph Brodsky to The Foundation for Establishing the Joseph Brodsky Literary Museum in Saint Petersburg. It is a narrative of my four visits to Valentina’s home intertwined with the history of her archive and the bilingual, legal, confidential, cross-cultural and other nuances I faced working with a private archive under a strict deadline.
Here I touch upon some strategies that may help colleagues work with private archives should they face such a challenge themselves. But the main focus of the article is the life line and the lifetime project of professor Polukhina to commemorate Joseph Brodsky's legacy as seen through her archive and perceived by me as I spent more than three months sorting out her archive together with her.
Through this journey, I hope to shed some light on the scope of her tremendous work, her wonderful personality and the impact of Joseph Brodsky on people's lives. This work on Valentina Polukhina’s archive under her own guidance was a unique experience, and this account of the work will be a small tribute to both her and the poet, and a way of sharing it with my colleagues. 
