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Anya Naumova
Freshman

Anya Naumova lives in Moscow with her mother and 22-year-old brother (when Anya was five years old, her parents divorced). Anya’s mother works as a Human Resources instructor in a training center for Rosinter Restaurants. Rosinter Restaurants builds, manages and develops a variety of restaurant chains targeted to different niches of the restaurant market in Russia; T.G.I.Friday’s, American Bar & Grill, Planet Sushi, and Il Patio are some of the restaurants from the Rosinter Restaurants group.

Anya is a very energetic person who enjoys outdoor activities. When she was 11 years old, she suffered a serious physical trauma when soccer gates fell on her. As a result of the injury, Anya spent a lot of time at the hospital in Intensive Care; during this difficult time in the life of her family, Anya’s mother turned to God. She started to attend an Orthodox church and soon became very committed to her faith. One day, she met a young man from a Protestant church. “Later he told us he was praying for a year asking God to send him a person to witness to,” Anya recalls. “So, he and other people from his church visited us every week to share the Gospel and study the Scripture. Through our friendship, and numerous conversations and discussions, my whole family came to Jesus. Now we attend the church of our friend, and he attends an Orthodox church and is preparing to become a monk. God is amazing!”

After graduating from high school, Anya tried to enter one of the famous universities in Moscow. While taking the entrance exams to that school, she was asked to pay a bribe. Staying faithful to her Christian beliefs, she refused, and as a result she was not accepted. Then, the pastor of Calvary Chapel, the church Anya and her family attend, told Anya about RACU, where his wife was studying.

“I enjoy studying languages,” Anya says. “In high school, I studied English and German, and now I’m starting to take some courses in Italian. I’m also very interested in written translation. My dream is to become a good philologist.” Anya has great leadership potential. She is an active member of her church worship team (when the worship leader is out of town, Anya assumes his responsibilities) and she has a very unusual ministry – she witnesses about her Christian faith to skateboarders.