“I was born in Ukraine. My father left Armenia before I was born. When I was a child I went in for sports, took dance lessons. I started from singing in a small restaurant singing for the guests.  There was a strip club Near the restaurant where the woman were dancing. It was the first such club in our city, so I decided to learn to dance,” woman told in an interview .

Varda says nowadays Pole Dance has become a kind of sport, different championships are held in many countries. She learnt about such championship in Ukraine and decided to participate.

“First I became a champion in Krivoy Rog [city in Ukraine] then left for capital Kiev where I won the first place as well,” she said.

Later she participated in different championships in Ukraine, Moldova and Russia and finally went to represent Russia in the tournament held in Amsterdam.

“First I was a singer and always thought about a career of singer and dancer. Then, I thought of a musical – it is the best genre for me where I can both sing and use my dancing skills. My performance features dancing and singing,” Varda said.

Varda is confident that nowadays singing is nothing without dancing. She urges all to take dance lessons. “People want to see singer moving in the stage,” she emphasized.

Her show in Yerevan is expected to a mixture of choreography and songs performed in three languages: English, Russian and Armenian.

“I last visited Armenia when I was four. Now I would be glad to see my relatives here,” she added.

In ten years a young Armenian dancer plans to become a head of Ukraine’s pole dance federation and owner of many pole dance schools around the world . “I think in 10 years I will be a mother, wife and a happy person,” she concluded.

Two missing Russian girls found with friend

Two young Russian girls in the Russian city of Bryansk were found in a friend’s apartment Thursday, a day after they were reported missing.

The Russian girls parents reported them missing Wednesday afternoon, about four hours after they failed to return home from school. They were found in an apartment in the same apartment complex they live in.

Russian girls Svetlana Kokotova, a regional police spokeswoman, said Russian girls Anastasia Boraborkina and Olga Markelova were being examined by doctors and psychologists.

The search that began late Wednesday involved 500 police officers and dog-handlers. Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for investigators, said a murder file was opened, which he said is routine when children are reported missing.

Bryansk is in southwest Russia near the borders of Belarus and Ukraine.

Femen’s blog accuses India of insulting the women of Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan. “Indian prostitution is directly conducted with impunity of the country’s criminal business. Blaming it on women is a shame for the heirs of such a rich and old culture,” it says.

Femen, founded in 2008 by Anna Hutsol, comprises some two dozen members who go topless during protests. There are 300 other members, including men, who join these protests without stripping.

Most Femen members are university students in the 18-20 age group. Some topless protests have been in European cities, including the Vatican. In 2010, one Femen protester exposed her buttocks outside a locked toilet in Kiev to protest the lack of public toilets in the Ukranian capital.

Last December, three Femen activists protesting in Minsk against Belarus’ long-ruling President were allegedly kidnapped by secret service officers. The women later claimed the officers threatened them with knives, cut their hair and left them naked in the woods. On January 16, Ukraine’s ministry of justice refused to register Femen as an official political movement, claiming its position was extremist.

For the Indian mission, today’s topless protest at the ambassador’s residence came as a surprise because a statement denying the report had already been issued.

The mission had clarified a couple of days back that “no discrimination” was being practised against Ukrainian women applying for visas to travel to India. “The number of tourist visas issued by our mission in Kiev to Ukrainians has gone up in the last few months. This is evidence that we have not practised any such discrimination,” said an MEA official.

While the MEA has been trying hard to scotch the rumours, there is truth to the influx of sex workers from Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Chechnya and Kyrgyzstan.

Sources in Delhi police said more than 3,000 women from these countries were staying in the capital to work as sex workers. “These girls are in demand,” an officer said.

Four young Ukrainian women braved sub-zero temperatures today to go topless and climb the balcony of the Indian envoy’s residence in Kiev with placards pronouncing “Ukraine is not a bordello” and “We are not prostitutes”.

The quartet from Femen, a group famous for topless protests against everything from sex tourism to Silvio Berlusconi’s peccadilloes, were protesting the alleged tightening of visa rules by the Indian mission in Kiev for Ukrainian women in the 15-40 age group.

The women cited an Indian newspaper report published last week as proof that the mission had branded all Ukrainian women in the 15-40 age group as prostitutes.

The report said the ministry of external affairs (MEA) had instructed its missions in the central Asian republics, along with Russia and Ukraine, to re-examine the visa applications of women aged between 15 and 40 and reject those in which their reasons for visiting India sounded unconvincing.

The report suggested it was being done to keep sex workers from these countries from entering India, particularly with elections in five states round the corner. Both the MEA and the Indian mission in Ukraine have since contested the claim.

A senior MEA official said the report was “weird, if not mischievous and misplaced”.

“No such instructions have been issued. Visa officials are continuing to use their judgement in the issuance of visas, but there is no discrimination,” the official said, adding such restrictions would make every man a potential terrorist and every woman a potential sex worker.

Officials in Delhi said the Indian ambassador to Ukraine, Rajiv K. Chander, was not at his residence when the four women from Femen arrived in Indian attire and stripped to their waists before using a ladder to reach the second-floor balcony.

The women tied a banner in English to the balcony that declared: “We are not prostitutes”. They also carried placards in English and Russian that said “Delhi, close your brothels” and “We demand apologies”.

Police detained the four women, said to be in their late teens and early twenties, after they climbed down from the balcony. Other protesters, all fully clothed, waved the Tricolour and knocked on the doors and windows of the ambassador’s residence until they were detained by guards and taken away by police.

Proving they belong » In advance of the 2006 Olympics in Turin, Italy, officials with the International Ski Federation said the sport “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.”

The Federation later changed its tone, largely because of public outcry, and supported girls jumping in the 2010 Games.

But the decision was not up to any group other than the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which rejected the notion that girls should compete in the Winter Games.

Girls showed they did belong during an event in 2009 at Whistler Olympic Park, where the 2010 games would be held. Van set a record — for both men and girls — with a jump of 105.5 meters.

Van continued her stellar performance in 2009 by winning the first girls world championship in the Czech Republic. It was a short-lived excitement as the girls lost a final effort to compete in Vancouver.

Girls ski jumpers ready to fly into the Olympics

Lindsey Van may never get a chance to stand on the top podium of the Olympics as a ski jumper, but thanks in a large part to her efforts, at least a girls will during the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.

Since first taking up the sport as a 7-year-old in Park City, Van has been dreaming of being on the women’s Olympic ski jumping team.

But there was a problem — no such team exists. Van, and other girls with a passion for flying off ski jumps and their supporters — have been fighting for the right for females to compete in the Olympics for 12 years.

It is “not something I want to do. It is something I felt like I had to do, not for me, but for the sport itself,” Van said.

The groups’ efforts — focused around Van, the first women’s world ski jumping champion crowned in 2009 — have been documented in the film “Ready to Fly.” The film is a tribute to the human spirit of fighting for what is right and at the same time focusing on what really matters in life.

Bill Kerig, a Utah director fresh on the heels from the success of his film and book “Edge of Never,” took up the project soon after the final legal case to get girls ski jumping in the Vancouver Games of 2010 was rejected.

But the story and the effort were not over — not by a long jump.

Women added: “This year is a big year for me because I’ll be playing in the Olympics, which has been a dream of mine since I was a young girl. Growing up in Russia, tennis wasn’t a big sport back then. It was all about being an Olympian, especially the winter sports. Fortunately we’ve been able to change that a little bit and tennis has become extremely popular back in Russia. This year to have a long grass-court season will be fun.”

Thirteen-time grand slam champion Serena Williams was pushed a little harder, especially in the second set, before progressing courtesy of a 6-0 6-4 defeat of Barbora Zahlavova Strycova. It was the 30-year-old’s 500th career victory – a milestone of which she was justifiably proud.

Women said: “It’s great. It’s the ultimate. It’s really, really cool. 500 is a lot of matches to play, let alone to win. The target is just to keep going. I never even thought about 500 till I got to Australia and realised after Brisbane I was at 498. I knew I was going to get to 500 sooner or later. Now I don’t know what the next milestone is.”

Williams’ scheduled fourth-round opponent is Vera Zvonareva and the seventh seed moved a step closer to that clash with a 6-1 7-6 (7/3) victory over Lucie Hradecka. Kaia Kanepi, the 25th seed from Estonia, is out after losing 6-2 7-5 to Ekaterina Makarova, but former world number one Ana Ivanovic progressed thanks to a 6-2 6-3 win over Michaella Krajicek.

Maria Sharapova may have dropped just two games in cruising into the third round of the Australian Open but the Russian has denied that indicates a lack of depth in the women’s game.

Sharapova, seeded fourth in Melbourne, thrashed Jamie Hampton 6-0 6-1 on Rod Laver Arena, duplicating her emphatic first-round victory over Gisela Dulko.

The clash with Hampton was closer than the scoreline suggests, though, and Sharapova was irritated by suggestions there were too few serious challenges in the early rounds of grand slam events.

She said: “You never know what you’re going to get. Sometimes we come out and we play three-set matches from the beginning and then it’s a question of ‘You’re top five in the world, why is someone challenging you to three sets from the beginning?’

“I think it’s just an excuse to make another story. That’s really what it all comes down to. My goal is to go into a match and play my game. If I do it well enough and come out winning 6-0, 6-1, then I’ve done a good job.”

Adding to her three grand slam crowns remains a priority in 2012, but Sharapova also admitted doing well at this summer’s London Olympics, where the tennis event will be staged at Wimbledon, was a major goal.