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I'd like to meet:

I've participated in dozens of weightlifting and powerlifting competitions, and I always enjoy meeting other weightlifters and athletes. I've been invited to some strongman shows and it's nice to meet fellow athletes who do feats of strength and train heavy duty, partly because they understand the work, the patience, the skills involved in feats of strength.

I suppose if I had to narrow it down to one person that would be cool to meet and shake hands with, I guess I would say movie star Johnny from the Pirates of the Carribean movies. How a pirate can be so handsome after a hard life at sea with that salt air and those vicious sun's rays is a mystery to me.

I doubt Edward Teach was so handsome. You must remember him? The most famous pirate of all. Edward Teach. He was better known as . . . Blackbeard. (Okay, end of history lesson.)

Varya says hello to her fans in many languages . . . Hello . . . Hola . . . Huy . . . Sawatdi . . . Pryvit . . . Sain Baina uu . . . Mbolo . . . Onga Mahundo . . . Malo . . . Aloha . . . Prontu . . . Ni Hao . . . Selamat . . . Ia Orana . . . Supa . . . Hallo . . . Hei . . . Bonjour . . . Γειά . . . हैलो . . . Ciao . . . こんにちは . . . 안녕하세요 . . . 餵 . . . Olá . . . Hola . . . Salut . . . Ahoj . . . 喂 . . . Dia dhuit . . . Здравствуйте . . . Sawubona . . . Haileo . . . Kotaka . . . Parev . . . Oki . . . Goeie Dag . . . Feele Bahic . . . Gidday . . . No Ngoola Daa . . . Jo Napot . . . O - Si - Yo . . . Zdrastuy . . . Buenos Dias.

A personal note from Larisa Akulova, mother of Varya.

Hello to all around the world. We are the parents of Varya Akulova.

Uri and Larisa. Friends have spoken with us and we have conveyed this message so it can be posted for all to see. I, Larisa, speak some English as does Varya. However, it is easier to allow friends to write this message.

First of all, we thank all fans of Varya. My husband and I both share a love of all things sport and strength related. If you ask us why, maybe we cannot give the exact reason. Why do people read comic books about superhuman people with awesome strength and power? Why do people go to bodybuilding competitions? Why do television networks show programs of strong men turning over tires or flipping logs? There’s just something special about strength and excelling in sports. There’s a certain pride in it I guess. Maybe this is why the circus strongman act is one of the most popular in the ring? It ranks up there with the trapeze artists for sure.

I, Larisa, met Uri when he was working in strongman acts. I doubt I am the only woman in the world who admires a strong, handsome, athletic man, which is what Uri is. Strong and handsome. We dated and then married. After we married, I also engaged in strength training. My husband and I frequently trained together. Went jogging. Practiced boxing.

After a few years of marriage, Varya was born.

When she was only a few months old, it was obvious she had rare strength. Strength went back in my husband's side of the family for over one hundred years so we were not surprised our child was strong.It is true we started training Varya when she was very young. It started out with light weights at safe levels and with frequent doctor visits to guarantee good health.

Some are upset that Varya started training young. Some are upset that at age 7 Varya was working in a circus with my family. Please understand in circus families, it is not unusual that children start in the act young. And children training in early sport training is common in many nations, especially in acrobatics or gymnastics. Examples include China, Romania and Russia. If Varya did not engage in the circus act, she would still travel with us while my husband and I performed. She could either sit in the stands and watch us or perform with us.

Varya’s safety was always the biggest priority.

Varya did not spend all or most of her time in the gym. No. As a young child, she had all the normal activities like other youth. We went to the playground. We played ball. We watched television. She was not on any special diet. We gave her what we could afford and if there was extra money, she was welcome to enjoy a treat such as cookies, pizza or some candy. We read to her daily since she was a baby and she excelled in school later on, often doing school work 3 grades ahead of what was normal. We encouraged her to learn about the world and nations and we even placed a giant world map on the wall in our apartment. We are kind people who believe in learning about other cultures.

As Varya grew older, she kept getting stronger. And stronger. And soon we had a successful circus act and we earned decent money by Ukraine standards,and were able to get a small apartment.

We didn't have access to a computer, and even if one had a computer years ago there was limited access to the Internet in Ukraine. Friends from America suggested we get a web page for Varya in the year 1994. Varya was age 12 then.

Back then America was just emerging from a recession and economic problems prevented our friends in the USA from hiring a web designer to make a page. So what to do?

A nice man in a European nation, offered his help. He worked with computers,heard of our family's struggles and offered to set up a page. This was nice of him. In May of the year 1995 a few months after Varya turned age 13 we had a web page up.

www.varyaakulova.com

And a very nice, professional looking page. We smiled.

Hundreds of people in the first month visited the page. In fact, within the first two hours the page was online, it already had a dozen views. Many compliments poured in about the web page. It is a well done web page, very professional. We thank the webmaster for being so kind as to place it up.

Thank you!!

glitter-graphics.com

Again, we say a huge Thank You!

glitter-graphics.com

People called for more video and more photos on the web page. So after three months we decided we must try something new. What we did was place up some photos and some video for pay view.

Over the past three years, we were able to raise some money by video sales on the site. This helped us buy some food. And heat our apartment in the winter. We were happy with this additional income.

Then we noticed something occurring. Before we placed up the web page, many publications and magazines would call our family for interviews and usually arrive and take photos and pay us something for the interview. After the web page went up, it changed. Some publications and newspapers simply removed the photos from the web page and used the information on the web page to run a story on us. While some might say "good free publicity" my family was sad at that loss of income.

We are complimented that magazines and news publications feel our daughter's talent is worthy of news in your publication, but the best way is to contact us and interview us. And, if possible, pay a small amount.

We have decided to make some charges to Varya's official web page. www.varyaakulova.com We have removed the video sales portion. The reason so few photo updates have been added in the past six months, is because we had restricted the number of photos hoping it would increase interview requests in publications, so we could earn some extra income that way.

We have supplied our photos to our web page
www.varyaakulova.com
There are a few other web pages that have interviews with our family and have photos up that a reporter took.

We politely ask other web pages to please respect our family's copyright. Please do not remove photos from our official web page or this MySpace page and use on your own page. If you think our family's strength talent is worthy of attention, simply place a link to our pages. Please don't repost the photos.

My daughter for much of her life trains in acrobatics. Gymnastics. Contortion. Boxing. Wrestling. She runs fast. She exercises on machines. She practices power lifting and feats of strength. It's not only weight training. She does yoga and stretching and sometimes trains for hours each day. There are days when my daughter in preparation for weightlifting contests lifts fifty tons of weight in one day of training. Please respect the copyright of photos and video we film.

Our American friends believe Varya is a great athletic talent and she deserves to earn an honest wage from her work. So my American friends have agree we will launch the Varya Akulova Publicity Machine. We hope Varya can attract a sponsor (so far she has never had one), make appearances at fitness shows or strongman shows and maybe plan soon to release some photo CD of feats of strength for sale and some DVD of feats of strength.

Look for good things in the future.

We are kind and religious people. However, we must enforce our copyright. We do feats of strength as a profession. This is not a hobby. This is our occupation. A plumber gets paid to fix pipes. A bus driver gets paid to drive a bus. A store cashier gets paid to collect money and sell things. Acrobatic feats of strength is our job. This is not a hobby.

If we sell a DVD of feats of strength of a photo CD of feats of strength, we will be especially strict if any material is placed on the Internet. We must do this, for who would buy a CD or DVD if they can view it for free on the web? If a web page decides it wants to run our photos, contact us and we negotiate a price. That's only fair since our photos and our daughter's name might be drawing traffic to the site.

Anyone out there like to hire Varya to appear in your booth at a fitness show? Bodybuilding show? She has many fans and a known name in the fitness arena, she could help draw audiences to your booth. ( Good advertising! ) Any television commercials want Varya? What about television programs? Or news shows? Any sports clothing companies want Varya to model some athletic wear?

Not only is Varya a prodigy of strength, she is a prodigy in intelligence and a very kind girl. And her younger sister we think someday will be as strong or stronger. Any serious offers, please send a MySpace message or an e-mail
( strongvarya(at)yahoo.com )

Please anyone who wants to be critical that we try to earn money from Varya's talent by Internet, understand we are far away from . . . the action . . . of the big fitness shows, and bodybuilding conventions. The Internet is the best way for us to earn money.

We thank you for your understanding and my Varya thanks her fans.

Sixteen questions for sixteen year old Varya Akulova

Question Number One: Can you lift one end of a car?
Answer: I want to try that, but I don't have a car. People that I know who do own a car are not fans of strength, so to lift one end of their car they would charge me a big fee, probably at least twenty five US dollars. In Ukraine it can take weeks to earn twenty five dollars. Lifting heavy pieces of equipment on a farm might be a great challenge, again same story. If I went on a farm near my home and asked to lift something heavy, the farmer would probably want to charge me money to do it. People often request photos of me lifting many people at one time, and I do place up photos of me lifting my mom and dad and uncle. Strangers most likely would request I pay them if I want to carry them on my shoulders or lift a man off the ground with one hand. I would have to pay these people I lift. Many would want to be paid.

Question Number Two: What is one lift you want to try?
Answer: I want to try a harness lift, a padded harness around my hips and shoulders so I can lift massive with leg strength. I think I could raise at least 800 kilograms in a harness lift. I don't have a harness so I can't do.

Question Number Three: Do you worry your growth will be stunted by lifting weights?
Answer: I'm almost as tall as my mother and I have had X-rays taken each year and a doctor examines me for stress in bones. My bones are probably much stronger than normal actually.

Question Number Four: What is most difficult part of weight training?
Answer: For my family it is food. Ukraine is a very poor nation, and to eat foods that help me gain strength are not affordable, especially with the record oil prices and inflation on rice and whole grains. Right now Ukraine has one of the highest inflation rates on earth! (We are in the top 5 for inflation I think.) Meats, fish, cheeses and dairy products are not affordable. My diet is basically an egg in the morning, a piece of bread in the afternoon and for dinner some bread, some noodles and maybe a home grown tomato. If I am lucky I get a small serving of sausage. My father thinks -- and I agree -- if I had grown up with a better diet instead of pasta and bread, I would be about 25% stronger. So it is simply getting the foods necessary to build and keep strength that is most difficult. And vitamins are very expensive also.

Question Number Five: What is a feat of strength you want to try but never have?
Answer: I want to try a backlift, raising a large amount of weight on my back using arm and leg strength. I think I can lift at least 900 kilograms in a back lift.

Question Number Six: What is something you think people don't realize about you?
Answer: They focus on my strength, and they do not think about the hundreds -- or thousands -- of hours I have spent on skills like juggling, breathing relaxation, acrobatics, stretching, contortion.

Question Number Seven: Can I call you on the phone and tell you I think you're great?
Answer: Actually, my father and mother wanted to put up our telephone number for public view . . . then our friends in the USA said "whoa . . . whoa . . ." Our friends reminded us that calls from around the world might pour in at different times in the day and night. So we must restrict the phone number. We don't want to get a call from Chicago when it is 8 in the evening in Illnois but in Ukraine it is 4 in the morning and we are sleeping. If anyone wants to sponsor me, or any media -- television or radio or magazines -- want to interview me, yes give us a call. I do speak some English now.

Question Number Eight: Why have so few television programs aired specials on you? Why don't I see you at any of the big fitness shows in the USA or Canada?
Answer: Remember, I am located in the center of an impovershed nation. It's my location. I say it again, location, location, location. I have appeared at some strongman shows and fitness type shows in Moscow or St. Petersburg.

Question Number Nine: Will your younger sister be stronger than you when she is older?
Answer: Difficult to say, it is possible. If my family can provide her with good quality foods, she will certainly have advantages of strength that I didn't have when I was her age.

Question Number Ten: Are you really the strongest girl in the world?
Answer: I set some Guinness recognized strength lifts and many newspapers proclaimed me the strongest. I've won many powerlifting competitions. To be diplomatic, I say I am strong. I say "I am a strong girl" I say I perform dozens of feats of strength. I say I can do gymnastic strength routines that require years of strength training. I say I am open to a challenge from another female weightlifter my age and size. If I win, I will be happy and smile. If I lose, I will congratulate my opponent, for being a good sport is important. Being in a big, coal mining city in the center of Ukraine, I doubt such a meeting could happen. I am trying to be diplomatic, on MySpace I call myself a strong girl. To those who say, if Guinness recognized some of your lifts, why are you not in a Guinness Book? Remember only a very small percentage of records get into the book. If they listed every record, the book would be so big.

Question Number Eleven: Where are most of your fans located?
Answer: Big concentration in the USA and a big concentration in England (United Kingdom) And a surprisingly high number far, far away in Australia.

Question Number Twelve: Any problems with any fans so far?
Answer: I am so happy to say not really. My friends (so protective of me) each week scan the Internet and do keyword searches on me to keep on track of message board postings, what websites are posting my photos and to see what kind of comments are being made. So far in at least five years the comments have been kind and people have behaved very politely. And 100% of the messages received so far on MySpace have been kind and polite. I suppose having a circus strongman father helps. My friends tell me few if any negative or nasty comments have been made about me, and I am so glad to hear it because I am a nice person who speaks kindly of others.
I suppose the worse experience so far was about four or five years ago when one man contacted my friends in the USA and this man (who claimed to be a "fan") told them he had arranged with a food company in Ukraine to send us a parcel of foods, stuff like honey, oatmeal, canned ham, cooking oil, margerine. When our American friends contacted the man a week later to enquire about when the company in Ukraine was going to make the delivery, the man laughed and said he was only joking, then made some silly remark like "I'm not the United Nations." So he was playing a joke.
So we had one bad experience in the last five years, I guess that is to be expected. But 99% of our fans have been kind and polite.

Question Number Thirteen: Do you want to be a bodybuilder?
Answer: I train mainly for strength and acrobatics. I don't plan on pumping iron to maximize muscle mass so I can go and flex on stage.

Question Number Fourteen: Do you want to be a fitness model?
Answer: Anything is possible. If there is an athletic apparel company or fitness product or gym that wants me to model their product or service, send me a message. Thanks.

Question Number Fifteen: Why do you release so few photos in the past year? Will there be more updates soon?
Answer: My family plans big things in a few months, we have to make changes and soon due to the price of oil. We understand the pain high oil is creating in France and Turkey and United States. We read the news. We in Ukraine are also getting hurt by high oil, which is creating record inflation and increasing the price of food at an alarming rate. In Ukraine if you buy a loaf of wheat bread, two weeks later buy the same loaf and price is already way up. So yes, we are planning soon to start releasing more videos and more photos. Please understand when we set up our official web page three years ago, we released many photos for free view. In the future, we will release little for "free" view. We are working to set up a seperate web page or use our official web page to put up some photos and maybe video and use a "shopping cart" type of payment system. To those who complain few photos will be free in the future, understand we placed up many many photos for free view on our official web page, and some of the photos got placed on other web pages, which in turn brings traffic to other web pages but we don't get compensation. There are several webpages that have photos up that we interviewed for and were taken by a reporter and those pages are okay. We do not object when we get an interview and photos are taken.
Varya trains and trains to be a fantastic acrobat and strong girl, and to keep her supplied in food we must earn more money in the near future. So yes soon there will be more video and more photos. It won't be free, no not free. Sorry. With record food inflation, we must earn money from our work. Please understand. Thanks. We will try to update a few free photos on MySpace every few weeks.

Question Number Sixteen: Do you do shows or feats of strength upon request?
Answer: Okay, feats of strength. We do feats that are safe and will not risk harm to Varya. We often hear "lift one end of a car" and please understand we do not have a car to lift and if we approach a stranger and ask to lift their car and take some photos, this is Ukraine, a nation in extreme poverty, the owner of the car would want money. As far as show requests, please understand it is a big world and we believe most people on earth are kind and proper. Of course, we also must consider our security. Varya is a sixteen year old girl, and we must always take care with her privacy and security (and we are much much much more protective of our three year old child, so you won't see many photos of her for several years. ) Do we do a private show? Depends. Say for example there is some wealthy person in Europe who wants our family to put on a strongman show at his daughter's birthday party. Yes, that might be possible if travel arrangements could be made. That would be a show with a crowd around. Another example, a fitness or bodybuilding show wants our family to show up and put on a strength demonstration. Yes, that might be possible. Or a fitness convention or expo wants our family to appear in a booth and do feats of strength and draw a crowd. Yes, that might be possible. Basically, if it's a public event or an event with a crowd, it's okay. If you are an established charity and our appearance would help raise money for a worthy cause, we might even appear for a reduced rate, as long as travel arrangements can be made.

For those who doubt Varya is one of the strongest people on earth, copy and paste this link. By the way, on this page the Akulova family was interviewed and supplied some photos, so this page has their approval.

http://spbac.narod.ru/IMG/aculvit.jpg

You'll see a photo of nine year old Varya at a weight of about 28 kilograms (about 61 pounds) supporting her mother and a man. As you can see, Varya is supporting herself with her ankles on one side and her shoulders on the other side. She's laying flat in the air and supporting her mother and a man. Total weight of the two is approximately 142 kilograms (or about 312 pounds).

Since Varya only weighs about 28 kilograms, she is easily supporting almost 5 times her own bodyweight in the air. This takes enormous strength in the upper legs, hips, lower back and stomach (core strength).

This is a real photo taken in front of an audience of dozens of people at a strength show in St. Petersburg, Russia a few years back.

Skeptics might say not all the weight is being supported by her midsection, some of the weight is transferred to her shoulders and ankles which rest on solid footing.

Even if 25% of the weight is transferred to her shoulders and ankles,75% of 142 kilograms is still about 107 kilograms (about 235 pounds)and 107 kilograms is more than three and a half times her bodyweight of 28 kilograms being supported solely by core strength.

Let's compare her strength on a pound for pound basis with professional strongmen who enter contests and compete for titles. Suppose a strongman is 130 kilograms (about 286 lbs, yes those guys are big) what is 5 times 130 kilograms? Any math majors out there? It's 650 kilograms (or approximately 1,432 pounds)

How many professional strongmen (even those who win contests in strength feats) can lay flat in the air with ankles resting on one side and shoulders resting on the other side while they support a weight this great?

Pound for pound Varya is one of the strongest people on earth.

Here is another example, from the same strength show in St. Petersburg. Copy and paste this link. Again, this page has the family's approval to run photos.

http://spbac.narod.ru/IMG/aculmom.jpg

You see 9 year old Varya (again about 28 kilograms) lifting and supporting her mother high in the air. The total weight of her mother and the small metal pole is about 72 kilograms (about 158 pounds). The weight of 72 kilograms is about two and a half times Varya's bodyweight.

To compare this with a 130 kilograms (286 pounds) strongman means to equal Varya's strength, the strongman would have to hold over his head a total weight of about 325 kilograms (about 716 pounds)

Varya power.

Simply incredible.

.. It's true having the strength of six to seven other girls her age and size gave Varya some advantages in life and school. It also gave her some problems that other girls her age didn't have to deal with.

School was difficult for Varya,especially in the lower grade levels. Since she traveled with a circus with her family when younger, she had to be placed in different schools every month. This created some unusual problems for her, especially with the male students.

Varya was famous in parts of Ukraine, when she arrived in a new town people in the town gave her flowers, and crowded the circus to see her power show. When Varya entered a new classroom some students knew who she was, they had seen the advertisements placed around town.

Varya is a kind person who never starts a fight (she is like a gentle giant, she has nothing to prove), yet some students in the classroom were wary of her. This upset her. In the lower grades (when she was age 7 through 11), occasionally boys would try to start a fight with her because they were a bully. Varya would just ignore them. She had nothing to prove.

In one classroom, when was age 8, a much bigger boy approached her on the first day she was in a new class. He did not know she was in a circus act. He yelled at her and tried to scare her. It didn't bother her at all. He grabbed hold of one of her shoulders and tried to push her down. She didn't budge. "Who are you?" the boy asked. Varya just smiled and laughed.

Varya had to be very careful to remember how strong she was, once a group of friends in school were standing around laughing and joking and pushing each other. Varya made a playful push against one boy and he flew back three yards. Varya was upset, but the boy wasn't hurt and he thought it was funny. In school Varya had few problems with female students in early grades, the females thought it was nice she was so strong. The male students didn't always agree. In elementary school they didn't like that she was stronger. Maybe it hurt their pride?

Now a strange thing has occurred. Varya is now age 16, and for some reason the boys don't want to fight now, instead they want to take her out for pizza and go to the movies. Varya is extremely popular at school. Things have changed a great amount since fifth grade!

Varya has encountered other difficulties in school due to her strength. She likes wrestling competitions but no boy or girl was strong enough. She tried wrestling two boys at once and they could not provide competition. In recess class when it is Varya's turn to kick a ball, all the students yell to each other to back up twenty yards. This makes her laugh.

Being new in certain schools, her fellow students usually want a demonstration of how strong she is. Varya laughs and is glad to oblige. She can sit in the back row with her seat against the wall and use her legs to push forward 5 desks with students sitting. She will lay face up flat in the air between two chairs (feet on one end and shoulders on the other end) and invite several students to stand on her body, and she supports in a bridge position.

She will invite 3 teachers to sit on one side of the teacher's desk and she will lift that side of the desk off the floor. She will carry 3 students on her shoulders.

Being so strong, people assume Varya is a "tomboy" Not true. Varya reads about fashion in magazines and likes dresses. She likes feminine hats. She is known for her strength, she is a gifted athlete, she is also a gifted painter and gifted in intelligence. At age 10 she was reading better than most 17 year olds. Being so strong also has advantages.

The family was having construction done on their apartment, a ton of concrete blocks and bags of cement had to be removed from the truck. The three male crew was struggling with carrying the heavy load inside, Varya offered to help. The men laughed and said "Such a small person!" Varya weighed about 125 lbs at the time. The men pointed and laughed. Varya walked over and carried three 80 lb each bags of cement inside, and also helped them lift heavy wooden beams into place.

Problems with Varya's strength didn't only happen at school. One night Varya (age 10) was training with weights in the family apartment. The next day was school and Varya's father told her to stop training and go to sleep. She wanted to keep training. She likes lifting weights. Her father told her no. She needed her sleep. Her parents turned off the lights and went to bed in the other room. Ten minutes later in pitch darkness they heard a noise. Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! Mother and father jumped out of bed. It was pitch dark in the apartment. Clunk! Clunk! Clunk!

What was that noise? Her father had worked as a bodyguard and he feared somebody was trying to break into the apartment through a window or door. Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! They raced into the main room. What was that noise? Clunk! Clunk! Clunk! A table in the room was shaking. The father turned on the lights. Varya was training in the darkness using a 200 lb barbell. She was lifting it off the ground and each time it landed clunk! She was training with weights in complete darkness, she thought if there were no lights were on her mother and father wouldn't know.

Varya power.

Varya's main training method.

People ask what is the secret method her father Uri uses to obtain such impressive strength gains? It is true Uri has taught his daughter little known training exercises that help her build impressive strength. These exercises were passed down to him as a young man, when he was living in Northern Russia (almost Siberia) by family members. Strength goes back in his family generations.

The main training equipment the family uses is old fashioned gymnastic equipment, standard barbells and dumbbells and many kettlebells. Their training uses a combination of free weights, gym equipment, breathing exercises and yoga. They also practice stretching and contortion. Her father keeps a detailed (very detailed) diary of her strength gains.