Top 5 Ukrainian fitness beauties on Instagram

The photos of these fit women have gathered thousands of followers and won’t hurt the stereotype of Ukrainian women as the most beautiful in the world. However, these women use their social account not just for vanity – they demonstrate that a sleek, toned body can be attained through healthy lifestyle, including running, training in a gym or doing yoga.

The Kyiv Post selected five top Ukrainian fitness wonders whose accounts on Instagram have attracted subscribers who appreciate beauty, willpower and devotion.

Bakhar Nabieva @bakharnabieva

The toned buttocks of fitness model Bakhar Nabieva, 22, have made her a cult in her native city of Dnipro in east-central Ukraine. Nabieva’s rearview workout videos and pictures have earned her a host of avid Instagram followers. She started doing fitness to gain weight after being mocked in school for being too skinny.

Now she has one million followers on her Instagram profile, many of which are world-famous celebrities.

The model is known around the world as “Miss Iron Bum.” It’s not difficult to guess why.

Alena Politukha @xoxoalenapo

The 32-year-old Alena Politukha uploads her photos and selfies almost every day on her Instagram page. Some 1.1 million followers regularly admire her toned body in a range of environments – in fitness clubs, restaurants and against a background of palm trees and blue oceans.

Politukha, the ex-wife of Oleksandr Politukha, a Ukrainian politician and the head of the city council of Derhachi, a city in Kherson Oblast, first became known to the public in March 2015, when thousands of Ukrainians discussed her naked photos. The woman later claimed her ex-husband had posted her photos online to damage her reputation during their divorce proceedings. She said that since 2011 she has worked as a model for a business that she and her now ex-husband own – advertising clothes and underwear – and posted her Instagram photos with the consent of her husband.

Now Politukha works as a model for German clothes designer Philipp Plein.

Mariya Karachyna @skinny.strong

Running, swimming and training in a gym are only a small list of the sporting activities of Kyivan Mariya Karachyna.

She leads a healthy lifestyle, works as a fitness coach and a freelance sports writer. She is also a founder of the women’s’ fitness club “Skinny and Strong.” However, most of all Karachyna likes running. “My love for running began in childhood, in school I secretly enjoyed to hear the news “Today we are running 1 kilometer for speed” at our sports classes, since most my classmates really hated running,” she wrote on her Facebook page.

Karachyna regularly takes part in half-marathons and marathons. In 2015, she ran a 42-kilometer marathon distance for 3 hours and 34 minutes dressed in a wedding dress to draw people’s attention to running and healthy lifestyle.

Karachyna regularly shares tips on how to get a fitted body like hers with her more than 10,000 Instagram followers. So those who lack the motivation to start doing sports, Karachyna’s Instagram account is exactly what they might need.

Yulia Levchenko @levchenkou

Yulia Levchenko, 19, is a promising high jumper and one of Ukraine’s most charming athletes, whose Instagram profile is followed by almost 8,000 people.

In 2014, Levchenko won a gold medal at the Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, China. Last year she won the third place in the international juniors’ athletic competition World U20 Championships in Athletics in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The beauty dedicates a lot of time to indoor and outdoor sports activities, which help her stay in perfect shape. Ukrainian tabloids regularly include Levchenko on lists of the most beautiful Ukrainian athletes.

Yulia Chernitskaya @fitness_mama_ua

How can you look good during pregnancy? What kind of training is good for a pregnant woman? How can one quickly claim their body back after pregnancy – or make it even more toned than before? Yulia Chernitskaya, a founder of the “Fitness Mama” sports project, knows the answers to these and many other questions. Her project conducts various training sessions, lectures on a healthy lifestyle, and free workouts.

Chernitskaya, a 30-year-old mother of four, has been active in sports since she was eleven. To keep fit, she goes to a gym three times a week, besides running regularly. “My workouts are moderate, as I don’t like women who are too muscular – I like to be fit and nicely built,” she says.