Eleanor Neale
š¤ SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Anastasia Kryazhil was a 14-year-old girl originally born in Russia on February 18th, 2004.
Not long after Anna was born, I think she was around one or two years old, her mother actually put her up for adoption.
And that was when she was found by her adoptive parents, Geraldine and Patryk Kryazhil.
Geraldine was an English woman and Patrick was a French man and the two of them were so desperate for a child but they couldn't have one themselves and so they really wanted to adopt and as soon as they found Anna, they were over the moon.
After adopting Anna, the family moved to Ireland, specifically County Kildare where she was now raised for the rest of her life.
And while her adoptive parents, Geraldine and Patrick, didn't have any links to Russia themselves, they wanted to make sure that Anna always felt in touch with her roots all her life, like as she was growing up.
They tried really hard to keep her Russian culture and her heritage
very much a part of her identity, like they kept her name Anastasia.
I think Anastasia is actually a Greek name but it's very popular in Russia as well and so they kept that name, they didn't rename her.
They wanted Anna to be very proud of her roots and where she came from when she was older.
They were never gonna hide the fact that she was adopted, they were never gonna hide the fact that, you know, she was from Russia and she had Russian parents.
They wanted her to know all that about herself and be proud of it.
But anyway, Anna herself was a very happy-go-lucky kid.
She loved to perform, sing, dance, act.
She loved to like put on little shows for her family and stuff.
I have a quote here from her mother who said, she spent hours in our front room listening to music and practising her moves.
Anna even started a YouTube channel as a child where she would upload just loads of random videos of her just being a kid.
She would dance in the videos, some videos she'd do makeup, some were more just like vlogs about her day.
She would just- she liked YouTube and she wanted to make YouTube videos, she didn't really care what they were on.
I think she just loved to entertain.