YOLKE is excited to introduce you to Anastasia Yakhnina, creative Director, mother, model and YOLKE muse. Anastasia's beautiful globetrotting life inspires our wanderlust and appreciation for the natural world. She spends her days embracing life and family, dancing along sand dunes scattered with wild flowers with her daughter Theia and photographer boyfriend, Kostya.
Images captured by Anastasia and Kostya
Meet YOLKE Girl Anastasia Yakhnina
You're a creative and globetrotting family, where do you call home?
Definitely at the beach, in the dunes next to the ocean, on top of the cliffs and anywhere we feel peaceful and inspired! Right now we’re based in Portugal and travel between Algarve and Alentejo.
Where do you believe has been the best place to raise your daughter?
I believe the best place to grow up is where people are open-minded and tolerant, so kids can explore life freely without being bounded by too many rules and preconceptions. In this sense Bali was a dream - now my daughter knows how to carry things on her head, say ‘good morning’ in Indonesian (it’s so cute and easy ‘Pagi’) and what it’s like to have ten different nationalities in your kindergarten group.
Tell us three lessons that travelling as a family has taught you.
Ok! First things first - don’t get attached to places! You may enjoy the experience of being there but moving forward is essential if you want to see it all! Second - be brave and make new friends! Being connected will bring a whole new dimension to traveling, helping you see places and points of view that you won’t see otherwise! And third - nobody said it was easy to travel as a family! Enjoying each other’s company is great when you can also have your own freedom to immerse into the new environments you’re in.
How did you get into photography?
It happened 11 years ago, when I studied advertising in London. I was doing art direction, modelling and everything in between, but always wanted to be able to actually take that shot which was in my mind. It’s been about three years since I started working with fashion brands directly, shooting my daughter and other kids as well as self-portraits with the help of my boyfriend.
Where you do draw creative inspiration from?
Life! All the different bits of it excite me - nature and its colours, people and their authentic self-expression, childhood, playfulness and being young forever.
How do you like to spend time as a family?
We love to be outside, explore and create, that’s why we are dreaming to camp a lot this summer and photograph in wonderful wild places around Portugal.
Walk us through a day in the life of Anastasia.
Are you sure? Getting up at 7.30am is a constant because Theia is excited to start playing, the rest will vary everyday! Sometimes we stay in and work, sometimes spend the day exploring new locations and just being in the nature. The quarantine situation actually helped me introduce daily workouts into the routine - I am so happy about this new habit! I often work after my daughter goes to bed (I’m doing this interview at exactly 2.43am)
If you had to choose one quote to live by, what would it be?
‘An honest man is always a child.’ Socrates
Do you have any hopes and dreams for the future?
Future is a fleeting thing, we blink and we miss it - it already became past. I try not to have many expectations for the future, but live in the present as fruitfully as I can. What’s happening here and now is a true miracle, let’s enjoy the moment and see where it leads us to!
South Africa, India, Peru and all the countries, where my friends live right now! They are wonderful, miss them a lot!
Thank you Anastasia!
Follow Anastasia and her adventures on Instagram | @ayakhnina