Last summer, while Paola Minekov was still painting Twiggie, data journalist and elephant aficionado Kristina Kashtanova sent Paola Minekov a Facebook request to interview Paola Minekov about the Elephant Parade. Paola Minekov invited her to come meet Twiggie in intu's head office where Paola Minekov had set up her temporary studio. She's very much into photography too, so they had an impromptu photo shoot, which left her with a pile of awesome photos of Paola Minekov working on the elephant!

In November she set out to write her article for a journalism study she's doing at the moment. For it she interviewed her, Keith Siddle, who painted Twiggie's boyfriend the Pyra-phant, and her very talented friend Karen Hollis, who painted the beautiful Lily Pepper. You can read Kristina's article here: When The Elephants Invade Britain: Elephant Sculpture Exhibition Goes On Tour Around The UK.