Everyone, without exception, spoke Russian: Valentyna Khamaiko named two people who Ukrainized the modeling business in the 2000s

Ukrainian TV presenter Valentyna Khamaiko, who has been in the modeling business since she was 14, spoke about how the industry treated the Ukrainian language in the early 2000s. According to the celebrity, she was brought up to love the Ukrainian language, so she made an unwavering decision to adhere to linguistic principles.

Khamaiko told about this in an interview with Alina Dorotiuk. She noted that at the time, Russian dominated the modeling environment. "And when you even made some attempts somewhere, or you talked to your mother, everyone always looked at you like this, like "Where did you come from?" But I felt a kind of support and resistance when Iryna Danylevska and Volodymyr Nechyporuk appeared," the host shared about the founders of Ukrainian Fashion Week.

"They spoke Ukrainian," Khamaiko adds, calling their views her "inner support" at the time. "Especially since the name Nechyporuk is quite dear to me," the guest revealed an interesting fact: "It was my grandmother's maiden name. That is why they have always been very close to me and very special people. And I owe them the fact that later I started to speak more Ukrainian in the modeling agency, remaining myself, not switching to Russian."

Hamaiko continued to speak about the importance of language, and in 2001 she became Ukraine's best model of the year and won the Black Pearl prize: "And speaking of language, I spoke Ukrainian at the Black Pearl. That is, they gave me such a support. I always knew that my family, which I will create, will be Ukrainian-speaking."

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