Russian Politician's Gravity-Defying Hair Sparks Memes: 'Amazing'

A Russian lawmaker with gravity-defying hair is going viral this week, thanks to resurfaced photos.

Valentina Petrenko, now 67, served as a senator from 2001 to 2018, representing the Republic of Khakassia in southern Siberia. However, to international audiences, she is best known for her raised, square-shaped hairstyle.

On October 12, a Twitter user shared several images of Petrenko at work. "I've been enjoying this Russian politician's hair this afternoon," wrote @jimmypop.

His post quickly racked up 75,000 likes as well as comments calling Petrenko's coiffure "amazing" and describing her as "an artist."

Petrenko's curls, which sit perched above her head, have long been a source of fascination. In 2015, Russian TV presenter and writer Tatyana Tolstaya confessed that she had only invited the lawmaker to appear on her discussion show, School of Scandal, because she was obsessed with her hair.

"I was not at all interested in how Senator Petrenko leads the country and its peoples from her high position," Tolstaya wrote in an essay posted on Facebook.

"I was driven by the most indecent and dark desires. I wanted to put both hands on Senator Petrenko's head and toss her hair."

Tolstaya went on: "After studying the pictures on the internet, I was convinced that Valentina … always had fine curly hair, but in her young, obkom [Soviet regional committee] years, she restrained her violent hair growth and wore a hairstyle that was quite normal, like a beehive.

"But as her career grew, the senator's curly hair grew (which can only be envied, of course), until her head turned into a hat made of Astrakhan fur... the height of it varied, but the outlandish shape remained unchanged."

Petrenko herself once told an interviewer that she was sick of talking about her attention-grabbing hair.

"I'm so tired of answering these questions," she said on the Echo of Moscow radio station in 2015. "I just have curly hair. I lift it upwards with some hairpins, that is all."

Born in Kazakhstan, Petrenko had a long career as a Soviet and then Russian public servant. The standout moment in her professional life came when she negotiated the release of three child hostages in December 1993.

Four gunmen had kidnapped a group of children and a teacher in Rostov-on-Don. They forced their captives into a stolen helicopter full of explosives and flew away, only releasing a few hostages at a time over the coming days.

The gunmen demanded a camouflaged military helicopter and $10 million cash. When they landed to refuel, Petrenko, a foreign ministry envoy, offered herself as a replacement hostage. They did not accept and were eventually caught.

Petrenko, who is married with a daughter, was given an honor "for personal courage."