Long eyelashes are generally considered beautiful, but this Ukrainian man’s extra-long lashes are just plain creepy. 58-year-old Valery Smagliy, from Kiev, believes that he has the world’s bushiest eyelashes, a trait that he attributes to a secret ingredient in his diet.

Valery said that he started eating something, and noticed that it made his eyelashes grow really long and thick. And when he realized that it made women jealous, he decided to keep the ingredient a secret in order to market it later. “Women would stop me in the street and ask me what the secret was, they can see that they are real and not fake,” he said. “And whether it’s man or woman, most people don’t seem to pay much attention when I’m talking to them because they’re always looking at my eyelashes.”

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68-year-old Ekaterina Bilyik is fondly known as ‘The Punisher’ in her home town of Zhidaev, Ukraine. Contrary to her appearance, the frail-looking grandmother is a total badass – she recently completed a gruelling military training alongside army cadets four decades younger than her.

The amount of energy and enthusiasm that she displayed during training is quite awe-inspiring. Footage from the training camp shows her rolling over snow-covered fields, leaping high, and firing assault rifles along with all the young men in her troop. And believe it or not, she is now training to take part in the raging battle in eastern Ukraine.

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This is what I call expensive art! While most artists spend money on art supplies, this Ukrainian man actually used money itself. 29-year-old chef Sergei Nikolayev Knurov fashioned a detailed miniature ship out of a variety of Ukrainian coins. The final piece contains a whopping 17,000 coins, with bank notes for sails.

Sergei, a resident of Mykolaiv city in southern Ukraine, first started the project with coins from his piggy bank. But he soon ran out of material – his personal stash only covered the keel. So he began to exchange paper money for coins whenever possible at drug stores and markets, and sometimes with friends. When people found out what the coins were meant for, they were glad to part with their loose change. The coins Sergei used are mainly 2 and 10 kopecks, and the sails are made of 25 five-hryvnia notes.

At first, it wasn’t easy for Sergei to actually create the 3 dimensional model of the ship using just his sketches and notes. But lucky for him, his wife Alena is an amateur numismatist (a person who studies and collects currency). She helped him fuse the coins together using silicate glue, which worked pretty well. Sergei said that using regular super glue could have resulted in oxidization, but this way the metal structure will last longer.

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It’s official, Ukraine is the land of real-life Barbie dolls. After the now-famous Valeria Lukyanova and Anastasiya Shpagina, it’s now time for another Ukrainian real-life doll to take center stage – meet 20-year-old Alina Kovaleskaya.

Hailing from Odessa, the same city as the above mentioned internet stars, Alina Kovaleskaya  has managed to attract a decent online following after uploading a series of photos of herself in doll form. That means laying on several layers of makeup, especially around the eyes, to make them look abnormally large and posing as a lifeless toy. It’s now a well-known recipe used by all of the seven (yes, seven) human barbie dolls in Odessa who all use the same tricks, hold photo-shoots at the same locations around the city and sometimes even appear in each other’s photos. Although accused of being yet another clone of the internationally-famous Valeria Lukyanova, Alina, however, claims to be different from all other Barbie imitators. She says she resembles the popular doll naturally, with her big eyes, small nose and small plump her lips. And yet it’s obvious she uses tons of makeup to enhance her features, just like every other human doll we’ve ever features, from KotaKoti to Vanilla Chamu. Although no self-respecting barbie wannabe would ever admit to it, there are some who accuse her of also using photo manipulation software like Photoshop.

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The Jar Bar, in Kiev, Ukraine, is the only place in the world where every item on the menu is served in glass pickle jars. To make sure patrons understand the concept, there’s even a sign on the door that shows bottles, glasses, bowls, cups and any other kind of dishes are strictly forbidden.

Although there are a handful of cafés and bars that use glass jars as dishes, the founders of Kiev’s Jar Bar claim no other venue in the world has taken such a radical approach to the concept as to serve every single item on the menu in jars. From soup, to ice cream, coffee and cocktails everything at this unique venue comes in glasses of various sizes. According to the bar’s official site, eating from a jar reminds people of home, taking them back to their childhood days when they tasted the delicious pickles made by their grandmothers, straight out of the jar. The unusual dishes also make it easy for customers to order their favorite foods and drinks to-go, or take leftovers with them. All they have to do is ask waiters for a jar lid. Apart from being the only available dishes, jars are also used for decoration purposes. The light fixtures are all large glass jars, the bar is lined with pickle jars, and the wallpaper is also jar-themed.

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39-year-old Dmitry Balandin, a robot enthusiast from Zaporozhye, Ukraine, spent six months building a 1.95 -meter-tall Cylon out of 500 plywood parts.

Dmitry Balandin works as a crane operator, but ever since he saw the 1980 Russian movie “Electronik”, about a professor who builds a robot that looks and acts like a human, he has always been fascinated by robotics. About two years ago he finally decided to live out his childhood dream of creating a real-life robot. In the beginning, he wanted to use metal as his medium, but realized it was hard to work with in his Zaporozhye apartment, so he chose plywood instead. After months of planning and experimenting, Dmitry finally started work on his wooden robot six months ago, designing and cutting all the parts himself. Although he didn’t have the resources to give his creation a human appearance, he decided the best way to make it as realistic as possible was to use flexible joints. The Cylon (a name inspired by the hit-series Battlestar Galactica) can bend and extend its limbs, shake hands and rotate its neck and torso, but Balandin wants to add a series of improvements, including a radio-controlled motor that will allow his wooden robot to move in a way similar to the fighting bots from the movie Real Steel. Unfortunately, that would cost the Ukrainian craftsman an extra $3,000, which at the moment is more than he can afford.

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During the last six years the Ukrainian city of Simferopol has been transformed into an urban art gallery by a mysterious artist who carves wooden statues out of dead tree trunks. There are now dozens of these incredible works of art spread throughout the Crimean city.

Not many took notice when the first wooden masterpieces started showing up in various areas of Simferopol, but in time the city became filled with them, and people began wondering who was behind them? Was it the local authorities, a local art group or did the trees magically transform into detailed sculptures? There were all kinds of rumors going around, but local media was finally able to track down the “perpetrator”. His name is Igor Dzheknavarov, and remarkably he’s not a trained sculptor or carpenter, but a cook. “Cooking is the biggest art of all,” he jokingly told surprised reporters. “If you can fry potatoes, you can do anything.” Ten years ago Igor taught himself how to sculpt, and at one point started using his newly discovered skill to improve the look of his city. He calls himself a co-artist, as all of his works are inspired by the unique lines and twists of the trees he carves.

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26-year-old Mustang Wanted (not his real name, obviously) got the nickname “real-life Spider-Man” after he spent the last decade climbing atop some of the highest structures in the former USSR, and taking unbelievable photos of himself dangling on one hand or tiptoeing on metal rails.

Ever since he was just a child, Mustang Wanted had a taste for extreme sports, and among his first hobbies were practicing the Brazilian art of Capoeira and “throwing battle axes”. Now, the former legal adviser from Kiev satisfies his adrenaline cravings by scaling sky-high structures, performing unbelievable stunts and sharing photos and videos of his achievements through social media. Some of his most famous exploits include doing push-ups on a metal tower at about 300 feet above ground, and dangling by one hand from a metal crane 150 meters up in the air. Just watching this stuff is enough to make most people’s hands sweat, but the young daredevil says for him fear does not exist: “Sometimes I think that I’m a robot. I do not feel anything.” His only real concern is getting caught by the police, who have on occasions disrupted his plans. Death is certainly not his biggest worry while balancing on metal beams and offering his fans a bird’s eye view of urban Ukraine and Russia, and even says he would rather die than suffer an injury that would end his “skywalking” career.

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Alexander Pylyshenko, the owner of a private zoo in the Zaporozhye region of Ukraine, has announced he plans to spend a year caged with two full-grown lions, in order to raise funds for a  proper care center for big cats.

If this story sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because this wouldn’t be Alexander Pylyshenko first such attempt. Back in 2011 he set a new Ukrainian record, after he spent 35 days caged with two lions, during which time he even helped the female deliver her cubs. From the moment he set foot into the cage, the feline lover started living as if he was a lion himself. That meant sharing the raw meat the lions were fed with and sleeping on hay beds. He even built a toilet and shower inside the enclosure so he wouldn’t be forced to leave the cage at any moment. This time however, he plans on living with male Samson and lioness Katya for a full year, so he needs to plan accordingly. Alexander, who has studied lions his whole life, decided to spend time with his two fanged pets both inside their metal cage and in his nearby country house, where he’ll be able to cook. The Ukrainian beast-master says that although his lions consume between 5 and 10 pounds of meat per day, depending on the season, Katya has developed a taste for his cooking and enjoys mushroom soup and tomatoes with mayonnaise.

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Oleg Maksakov, a hairdresser from Sevastopol, Ukraine, has a very unique way of cutting his clients’ hair – wearing a blindfold and masterfully wielding two pairs of scissors at the same time.

Most clients visiting a hairdresser are worried they might get a bad haircut, but Oleg Maksakov’s customers are more worried about getting one or both of their ears sliced off. That’s because the young Ukrainian likes to cut hair with both hands and wearing a blindfold. He has been a hairdresser for 10 years, but only recently took up the dangerous challenge of cutting hair blindfolded. “I wanted to test my skill level,” he told TSN. First he learned to cut hair with his left hand, than with both hands at the same time, and finally, while blindfolded. “It’s kind of like meditation,” Oleg says. “Each haircut for me is extreme. The structure of hair, different people, it all goes a different way every time.” According to local media, Maksakov has become very popular after word of his special skills spread in Sevastopol, but his very first client was the person that trusts him the most – his mother.

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Alexander Wald works as a plumber in the Ukrainian city of Lviv, but in his spare time he likes to exercise his artistic talents by painting with unusual mediums like ground coffee and sand.

Painting with coffee is not exactly unheard of. Artists like Karen Eland and Steven Mikel have been doing it for years, and even coffee beans have been used as an artistic material in an impressive mosaic by Saimir Strati. But until I came across Alexander Wald’s works, I had never heard of anyone using ground coffee. The Ukrainian amateur artist makes a living working as a plumber at the Lviv Circus, but most of his free time is spent creating unique works of art from dried coffee residue and sand. He drinks 2-3 cups of coffee a day, and instead of throwing away the coffee grounds on the bottom of his cup, he dries them and uses them as an art medium. His colleagues pitch in as well, otherwise Alexander would actually have to buy fresh ground coffee. This way, he enjoys his morning cups of java and has plenty of free material to work with. The self-taught artist says any kind of coffee will do, except for instant coffee, which doesn’t produce any leftover grounds.

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Svetlana Ivanchenko is a talented Ukrainian artist who uses overlooked natural materials like sand, seashells, quartz, tree roots and tree bark to create wonderful mosaics that look almost painted by hand.

Born and raised in Yalta, on the shores of the Black Sea, Ivanchenko was always fascinated by the abundance of natural materials that surrounded her. She studied at the Crimean Art School, under the supervision of renowned artist Sergei Bokaeva, and later graduated from the Glukhivskiy Pedagogical Institute. The artist currently based in the city of Dnepropetrovsk uses a variety of sand, shells, quartz and tree parts to create amazing works of art inspired by her place of birth and the warmth of the female body. It’s hard to believe, but every little piece of material used to create the artworks is placed by hand, and no coloring other than that of the composing elements is used. As Pinar from My Modern Metropolis notes, Svetlana “merges the various textures and colors brilliantly, making it difficult to imagine the frames being made of anything else.” Her natural masterpieces have been exhibited in international galleries, and many of them reside in the private collections of connaisseurs in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, Estonia and the Dominican Republic.

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Enterprising coffin maker Stepan Piryanyk, from the Ukraine, is offering living people the chance to lay down in one of his comfortable coffins in order to get used to the afterlife. After all, death is always so sudden, so why not take some time to get used to it…

Lying down in a coffin as therapy is not unheard of. Just a week a go we posted an article about a special Chinese psychotherapy clinic where patients lay down in a coffin and have the lid shut over them, in order to experience death and rebirth. A Taiwanese professor also buries his students alive in a coffin in the floor of his classroom, to make them appreciate every second of their lives. But Stepan Piryanyk, from the Ukrainian town of Truskavets, has found a new way to use his spooky wooden boxes as a form of therapy. The owner of a large coffin-making business, Stepan decided it would be a good idea to set up a special room where people could just lay down in one of his comfortable coffins, and experience being dead. Ironically enough, some people actually took him up on his creepy offer and said it was a very relaxing experience. Read More »

It’s official, this real-life anime trend has gotten completely out of hand. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t stumble upon some photos of girls going to any lengths in order to look like real live anime characters. Today’s example, Anastasiya Shpagina, an Ukrainian girl who has even taken a Japanese name – Fukkacumi. Not the most inspired choice, I must say…

Just last Friday I wrote an article about a rather creepy-looking Chinese model called Tina Leopard, who had the pointiest chin I’d ever seen and had risen to Internet fame thanks to her anime-like appearance. I had discovered there was actually a trend sweeping China, with thousands of Chinese teens posting photos of themselves with anime-style makeup and hairstyles, but apparently it’s not just China that’s affected by this bizarre fashion. Venus Angelic, a young Londoner who made headlines in international media for her YouTube videos where she talks and makes herself look like a living Japanese doll, and Dakota Rose(aka Kotakoti) from America, were also praised for their genuine anime looks, and now the trend has apparently hit Eastern Europe as well. After Valeria Lukyanova sparked controversy in Ukrainian and Russian media with her doll-like features a few months back, it’s Anastasiya Shpagina’s turn to baffle us with her realistic anime-like looks. Coincidentally, she’s from the same town as Valeria, Odessa.

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Alexander Stupkin, a 30-year-old car enthusiast from Odessa, Ukraine, has spent the last two years turning his old Mitsubishi Eclipse into a gorgeous Lamborghini Reventon replica.

It’s barely been two weeks since we posted an article about Wang Jian, the 28-year-old Chinese farmer who built his own Lamborghini Reventon from scrap, and now we have another Lambo fan who decided to built his own dream car. His name is Alexander Stupkin, a young Ukrainian jeweler from Odessa. Apparently he has always been a fan of beautiful sports cars, and since he was already working in a field that requires patience and accuracy, he decided to try his luck with tunning. Although he had no experience with tunning cars, with the help of family and friends, Alexander managed to transform an old 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse he bought in 2008 into a stunning replica of his Italian dream car, the Lamborghini Reventon. It’s true the build process took over two years, but the end-result is really impressive, if you ask me.

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