The Costa del Sol's own superwoman

Modern movies are full of women with fantastic powers. However, superwomen can also be found in real life, for example in Rincón de la Victoria, where Oksana Hryhorash lives. She is a self-made Ukrainian woman, who became stronger, though says she remains weak.

Her life story resembles a Hollywood movie plot. Her journey to becoming a powerful woman probably started in a forest at a secret Soviet army military base. This was not her choice, but the result of circumstances.

"I got married quite early. So when my husband was drafted into the army in the middle of the 1980s, to serve in an artillery unit, I followed him and, like him, had to swear an oath to serve the Soviet Union," she tells SUR in English.

There, she explains, her personal experience taught her the meaning of the common Soviet phrase: "If you can't do it, we'll teach you; if you don't want to, we'll make you."

"There I had to help wherever I could," she continues, recalling that that even involved cooking for all of the soldiers when the cook got sick, something she describes as "a bit frightening".

She also remembers being frightened when she received the news that her husband would be one of the first to fight the fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.

"However I was not fearful at all when on an early, cold morning, I was told to insert the warheads into shell casings of the 'Grad' multiple rocket system - to be sent to the ranges for test firing," Oksana admits.

Life circumstances led to more adjustments for Oksana, and soon she found herself having to fight again, but this time in civilian life. Soon, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country fell into poverty, and Oksana, by then a mother of two, had to go abroad to earn money to support her family.

"We have the proverb - live and learn. And if you come to live in a new country you have to learn much more. I understood this from the very beginning when I moved to Italy. I was convinced that by doing only physical work, you couldn't get very far. That's why, I started learning Italian at the university," Oksana explains.

When she moved to Spain 22 years ago, the first thing she did was to apply for a Spanish course at the language school in Malaga where she was also given the opportunity to teach conversational classes in her native Russian.

It was meeting a Spanish-Dutch boyfriend in Malaga, after her marriage ended, that really made her go out and test her abilities.

When his relatives tried to speak to her in English, she decided that would become her third foreign language to learn. But that relationship was also a chance for her to discover her strength in activities involving adrenaline.

"Each time, I tried to do the same as my boyfriend, and did my best not to be worse, or rather weaker (at least mentally), than any man. I remember that the first challenge for me was diving. I enrolled in a diving school where I ended up getting my diploma. I went in for rowing and judo too," she explains.

"Driving a car was another step up for me and I successfully obtained my driving licence. In April I am planning to have a navigation licence."

To drive a car or a boat for a Western European woman is not unusual, but Oksana earned another licence that hardly any foreign woman in Spain could boast.

"My boyfriend was a member of a shooting community, and I accompanied him to the shooting range. So, not to be bored waiting I took up shooting on my own," Oksana says, admitting that it wasn't easy. "I can't believe that in spite of everything, I still passed the exam with a score of 80," she adds. Oksana became a member of the Andalusian Olympic Shooting Federation (Federacion Andaluza de Tiro Olímpico).

"I was even more proud of myself when I was told that I was the only woman from the former Soviet Union and a few other foreigners who had been authorised in Spain to carry a firearm," Oksana adds.

After success on land and sea, Oksana needed only air to complete her 'mission', but she went one step further and made it to space. Not in real life, however, but in a movie.

"About six years ago, I was cast for the Malaga-produced movie Matryoshka, where I played the role of the Soviet cosmonaut who finds herself in a difficult situation being in open space. My character challenges her moral and physical strength, and I had also to do something similar during the filming. I remember I needed to spend a lot of time 'flying' realistically depicting no gravity. It was a challenge for me because I had on a real space-suit and a real space helmet though my 'space' was not cold at all, it was 30C of Malaga summer. So I discovered not only my acting skills but extra physical abilities, just trying to be 'closer to the stars'," Oksana says.

Despite her success stories and evident strength, the Russian invasion of her country makes her feel worried and powerless.

"I belong to those people who have relatives in both countries, Russia and Ukraine. Sincerely, this confrontation makes me weep, especially after speaking with my families and [hearing] their stories. I can't help crying, because I am aware I can't help. In this situation I have no power to make the countries be brothers again and not enemies. I wish I had," Oksana says.

On International Women's Day, Oksana will try to smile because 8 March has additional meaning for her.

"All women in my country used to be given either a bouquet of flowers or a gift on this day. But more than 30 years ago, I got my special gift - my daughter. She was born that day, and since then 8 March is a double holiday for me. Traditionally, she and her son (they live here) will wish me Happy Women's Day," Oksana adds.

"Of course I am not a superwoman at all. I am just a woman in the modern sense of the word but with classic values," says Oksana. "But I do really want to be a superwoman to help all of us on the planet live in permanent peace," she confesses.