Just over ten years ago, Irini Merleni ended her professional wrestling career and has since had a job within the Ukrainian Wrestling Federation and found other interests.
- I have trained pole dancing for five years and I have competed in it and won competitions.
I have also participated in "Ukrania got talent" with that talent, she says.
A sport that she now also has the opportunity to perform in the neighboring town of Tornio, on the Finnish side of the river.
- It is a big difference from wrestling where you have to be present and react to your opponent.
When I dance, it's just me with the music, she says.
The discipline from wrestling contributes
Irini Merleni has also performed and competed, in everything from tango, salsa to traditional Ukrainian folk dance.
In the Ukrainian equivalent of "Let's dance".
- Wrestling with its discipline made me stronger and I improved myself so wrestling saved me and helps me now, she says and it was also wrestling that took her to Sweden after getting help from members of Haparanda's wrestling club.
Hope peace returns soon
Since she came to Sweden, she has been partly employed by the wrestling association.
Irini Merleni and her mother have also gotten a job at a local hotel as breakfast hostesses.
- In Ukraine, I lived in a big city, in the capital Kyiv for 16 years.
Many fond memories from that time and I miss my friends in the cultural and sports life, she says.
Irini Merleni hopes that peace will soon return to Ukraine and Kyiv.
- I hope that the city will be as nice and fantastic a place as it once was and that the culture will return, she says.
In the clip, Irini Merleni tells how she, her mother and her two sons have adapted to the new everyday life in Harparanda.