Anastasia is only 12 and she is not the most ordinary Russian teenager.
At her age she has already been in the centre of a television and social media storm in her home country of Russia after launching a campaign against the bullying and humiliation of women and children called "Respect on TV."
It was spurred by her own experience of what she describes in her Twitter campaign as "public humiliation" in front of the whole country by TV hosts.
"This trauma will never go away."
Accompanying her father, who was seeking a new romantic relationship, Anastasia was a guest on a hugely popular show on the Russian TV Let’s get Married' - a localised adaptation of American dating programs like The Bachelor.
It is one of the highest-rating shows on Channel One - the most popular television broadcaster in Russia.
During the show Anastasia expressed strong opinions on a number of issues such as a woman's roles in the family.
Displaying a strong intellect and her ability to discuss a broad spectrum of topics, it was clearly not up to the host’s tastes and more traditional values.
"You are a very insincere girl," the TV host, famous Russian actress Larisa Guzeyeva, said to the girl. "All your ideas are factitious."
Once the episode of the program was published on YouTube, it gathered over 2,500 comments with most of them lashing out at Anastasia calling her a "monstrous child", "nasty little girl" and "disgusting kid".
The comments quickly crossed the line from angry to violent and threatening with comments such as:
"If I had a daughter like this, I would have strangled her a long time ago."
Anastasia says, "these comments caused me a great deal of trauma that will never go away."
The trailer for the episode also used a horror-style soundtrack and colour scheme when portraying Anastasia, who says that hot topics like religion and feminism are common in her household in conversations with her dad.
In her campaign, Anastasia likened this situation to cyber-bullying and paid respects to other young victims including the young Australian girl Amy Everett who took her own life in early January succumbing to cyber-bullying.
Campaign to raise awareness around bullying

Family of Amy Everett launches campaign to raise awareness around bullying and depression
“Stop this bullying and humiliation of the teenagers and young women on the main national channel of Russia,” - this is what Anastasia is calling on the CEO of the Channel One to do.
Anastasia told SBS Russian, anyone could have been in her position and she is lucky to be able to cope with the negativity poured at her through social media.
"Not every teenager is capable to handle these insults."
"I could separate myself from those messages by thinking positively and blocking those who bullied or didn't agree with my campaign."
Cyberbullying in numbers
In Russia cyber bullying has been a neglected topic for a while despite the numbers proving it’s a real problem among school age kids.
According to the WHO research, Russia stands very high with 11 per cent of young people age 11 experiencing online harassment.
By comparison, in France it’s two per cent and in Sweden one per cent.
With the average number of youngsters affected by cyber bullying across European countries standing at 3.3 per cent, Russia's figures are staggering.
Although by the age of 15, cyber bullying seems to be better tamed in most countries, it is not the case for Australia.
Numbers go up as we go to Down Under. In Australia, 19 per cent report being cyber bullied - which is 2.3 times more than Aussie kids age 8 to 13.
In this department we do better than in Russia but more than double than average in Europe.
Starting off on her own
The idea of starting a campaign against bullying emerged naturally.
Anastasia was aware of the #metoo movement and feminist activists around the world and some elements inspired her public campaign.
Passionate about gender equality and women's rights, Anastasia also felt inspired by Emma Watson 'HeForShe' campaign.
Speaking to SBS Russian, she didn't give away any future plans for an activist career, saying that for now she is focused on creating personal video messages and disseminating them through social media.
Within the 'Respect on TV' campaign the young activist has already addressed prominent politicians and public figures asking them for support, among them the female candidate to presidency in Russia, Ksenia Sobchak, and the current Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Anastasia was already backed up by Russian feminists seeing her as a role model for young generations and some media personalities.
She tells SBS Russian "I am ready for the next leap of achieving my goal - to remove these hosts from the program and have the show revamped."
Share
