Crimea's Poklonskaya: Putting The 'Cute' in 'Prosecute'

Natalia Poklonskaya, Prosecutor General of Crimea, who became one of the symbols of the so-called "Russian spring", celebrates her 35th birthday on March 18.

It may seem like a curious coincidence, but she celebrates her birthday on the same day when Crimea and the Russian government signed the treaty of reunification in 2014.

Poklonskaya was born in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic of the Soviet Union, and later her family moved to Crimea. She worked as an attorney in Ukraine from 2002 to 2014 in various offices.

During the Euromaidan crisis, Poklonskaya on February 25, 2014, handed in her resignation from the Ukrainian General Directorate of Internal Affairs in Kiev. In the document, she stated that she was "ashamed to live in the country where neo-fascists freely walk about the streets." She left Kiev for Crimea and on March 11, 2014, was appointed Prosecutor of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea. Poklonskaya was appointed to the position after it had been reportedly rejected by four male candidates.

Her criticism of the Euromaidain protests and the new coup-installed Ukrainian government resulted in a criminal case against her in Ukraine and stripped her of the rank of Counsellor of Justice.

On March 25, Poklonskaya was appointed as acting Prosecutor of the Republic of Crimea, the new office created after the peninsula’s reunification with Russia.

On March 11, 2014, Poklonskaya held a press-conference in Crimea where she harshly criticized the new Ukrainian government and laid out her vision for her new office.

The event was captured on video which was uploaded on YouTube. It hit over 1.7 million views within a month. A lot of quotes and viral images taken from the video became popular on the Russian segment of Internet.

Surprisingly, the video was also popular in other countries. After it was uploaded on one of Japan's YouTube channels, it was viewed 300,000 times in first four days.

On March 15, 2014, a Japanese blog published an article about Poklonskaya with some pictures of her taken from her account on Russian social network Odnoklassniki.

The attractiveness and cuteness of the blonde prosecutor soon went viral among Japanese and Chinese internet users. For many of them Poklonskaya was an ideal beauty. During his visit to Crimea, former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama admitted he was "a great admirer of her beauty".

Poklonskaya immediately became an icon for many Japanese cartoonist and animators who were struck by her beauty. Many of her fans created anime-style images and videos which were uploaded to the Internet and attracted attention from international media outlets.

Public accounts were created by fans of Poklonskaya on many social networks – Facebook, Vkontakte, Twitter and Tumblr. The public page on Facebook hit 33,000 likes in five days.

The beautiful prosecutor became a hot topic on a great number of Internet forums and image boards across the world. Russian, American and European users started to create cute images of the "Crimean angel" praising her beauty.

Russian anime fans nicknamed Poklonskaya "nyasha" (a cute, adorable person) and "Prosecutor-chan" (an endearing prosecutor).

In addition, YouTube was flooded with various songs and music videos devoted to Poklonskaya. One of them Nyash Myash, which was created and uploaded by YouTube user Enjoykin, has hit nearly 17 million views as of now.

Despite her tremendous international popularity, Poklonskaya has no accounts on social networks and does not take part in any Internet discussions.

She has a daughter from her first marriage from whom she learned about her popularity among anime fans. Poklonskaya is fond of sports and painting. She also likes playing piano.

Poklonskaya takes her popularity neutrally saying: "I’d rather be appreciated for my work."