"I had never thought carefully about my daughter's looks before," Yuliya Belyaeva told the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily newspaper. "And then when this happened I tried to recognise my own and my former husband's features in her. There was not the slightest resemblance. But then I calmed myself down by telling myself that maybe my husband had dark-skinned ancestors." It turned out that Irina's biological father Naimat Iskander was originally from the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan which accounted for Irina's darker complexion. By contrast, Anya, Ms Belyaeva's biological daughter had blonde hair and fair skin.