Meet the skating babushka of Baikal- Lyubov Morekhodova, her surname means The One Who Walks on Sea

She maybe a pensioner, but Lyubov is far from retired. 

She needs to skate to check on her cows when they walk too far from the house where she lives alone. 

Her steel skates were made in 1943, and they’ve been going strong ever since. 

Lyubov became a Russian internet sensation when her friend Alexey Vaskov filmed a short video and posted it online. 

Days after she was inundated by journalists inviting her to come to Moscow’s federal TV channels. 

But the limelight is not for her. Olga Igosheva and Boris Slepnyov from Kopeyka newspaper visited Lyubov in her hut on Baikal shore. 

Bailkal is the place she loves, and her first name means Love.

She was born here, in Shara-Togot ulus on the shores of the mighty lake. 

Her father Nikolay was a forester, mother Fiona looked after the house and their seven children. 

'I’ve always been going long distances on skates,’ she said.

'I started skating when I was seven.

'My Dad made the skates by cutting a metal saw and inserting it into pieces of wood which I then tied to valenki (traditional felt boots)….

You won’t see competitors at the Winter Olympics skating like this but in the Siberian cold - which can dip to -50C - her 'steel horses' are warm and effective.

'I don’t like modern skates, they wobble around my ankle and feet get cold. 

'Valenki are always warm. 

'I was even competing in these skates with my fellow factory workers.’ 

She worked for 42 years as a technology engineer at Kuibyshev factory in Irkutsk, and retired here - to her old family home - with her husband. 

He died in 2011, and since then she has been alone, resisting calls from her family to move back to the city. 

'I sit alone in the kitchen. I sit and look at this,’ she said of Baikal.

'It gives me happiness, a good mood, and then I always think, if anybody sat next to me, they'd say: 'What a beauty, what incredible beauty’.'

She wakes up 5.30 am, and starts her stove, feeds the cows and lets them out to graze.

Lyubov has four dogs, a cat, two hens, two roosters, two calves, five cows and two bulls. 

The wind is luckily so strong here at Baikal that it bares hill sides so cows have access to grass all year around. 

Then she feeds her dogs and worries that she can’t afford anything better than a ‘soup’ of potato, mixed fodder and dry dog food. 

Her sons, grandchildren and nephews come to stay with her in summers. 

She has taught all her family members to mow grass, rake hay, chop wood and set up nets. 

Her drinking water comes from Baikal - of course! 

In winters she gratefully receives help from nearby neighborhood, when men come to make an ice hole for her. 

She has to bring water in buckets, including for animals, and every days she goes down and up the hill, with two full buckets of water, up to ten times. 

She keeps an eye on cows and when she can’t see them for long, she puts skates on and goes on ice to shorten the distance to a nearby hill. 

She refuses offers to go to Moscow and reacts to her unexpected fame in a very reserved manner. 

'Just what do these people want from me? I am minding my business and not touching theirs. I’ve got no spare time at all, and they are inviting me to Moscow!

'I don’t even watch TV, perhaps only some days in the evening. 

'And anyway who will I leave my animals to? And what if they ask me something, and I won’t no what to answer?'

She is very talented in embroidery, she loves macrame, crocheting and weaving from beads. 

Some of her works, whenever she dared to take them to Irkutsk, won prizes at local competitions.

'I am not scared at all here, I don’t even know what I should be scared of,’ she said.

'The only unpleasant thing here is drunk tourists on ATVs who forever manage to break something. 

'They killed two dogs and turned my boat upside down.

'But I realise there is little I can do about them…. In the summer, when there are lots of people.

'I tell them: 'Pick up your litter, tidy up after yourselves. Don't leave litter, it all ends up in Baikal.' 

'We live a happy life here, me and my animals. In summer I get to see all my relatives, and in winters I am way too busy to get bored.’