Growing up in rural Ukraine, Valeria Chenchevaya had very limited access to friends, activities, school, and other things that equate to a normal childhood. Instead, she had shovels, farming hoes, and vocal cords that sung to a traditional tune created thousands of years ago, thousands of miles away.

The humming of her one-note tunes helped her ease through her farm work, but it was the twirling of heavy tools that drove her excitement.

As she got older, she embraced newer, more risky ways to enhance the adrenaline rush of twirling. Now that steel and rust no longer felt threatening to her, she had to get creative. One night, she took the broken handle of a broomstick and some old oil rags from her father’s barn. She tied the rags to each end of the broomstick, and lit them on fire. She laughed with exhilaration as fire brought her formations to life. The stick eventually caught fire and gave her a minor burn, but it was nothing to deter her from an enhanced hobby.

With all the free time on her hands she experimented with a plethora of improvised fire-twirling apparatuses, which eventually led her to the design she uses today: two aluminum cans connected by a string, with a burning coal in each can. The mechanism was cheap to make, minimal and most importantly, portable.

As her twirling and singing skills progressed, she moved off the family farm and took a job as a maid at an orphanage. The optimism and untouched innocence of the kids inspired Valeria Chenchevaya to make the most of the few talents she had: twirling, singing and farming. At the time she was convinced only one of those would get her out of the Ukraine, so she saved money for a woofing trip to Germany.

She was a good worker on the farm and connected well with her host family. One night, the father had caught her practicing her two utmost passions in the manner she had become accustomed to: alone, dark and in a field. After hearing her first human applause, the man told her that her best skills were not to be used on the farm. He drove her to Munich that day, gave her some cash and told her that her vocal and twirling talent could take her anywhere.

Valeria Chenchevaya stands out among other street performers. Not only is her act unique, combining yodel and fire twirling in a way that dazzles her audiences, but it has also allowed her a leisurely lifestyle of travel, making friends and doing what she loves.