My name is Aidana, as you already know. I am a kazakh. From my mother language “Aidana” stands for two things. The first syllable “ai” translates as the moon, second “dana” means wise or smart. Also, from the Arabic language, if I’m not mistaken, it means “pearl”.

My name was given by my older sister. She actually proposed a list of names and my mother picked “Aidana”. So, my name truly describes me.

I was a very shy, quiet, short-spoken child. But, what I want to point out, is that I was born and raised by the generation of women in my family. Women in my family are the strongest, phenomenal, marvelous, smartest and simply irreplaceable human beings I’ve ever seen in my life.

Yes, I want to talk about women today!

Woman. What a beautiful word. I am amazed and inspired by women every single second of my life.

As I was saying, I’m raised by the generation of women. Matriarchat always reigned in our household, represented by my grandmother, mother, aunt, and sister. This is the four figures that I always look up to this day.

My mother’s name is Saule. She is indescribable in words. Powerful is the word for her. Why powerful? Because she is a human representation of the power of the mind. Everything she puts her mind into comes to life immediately. Every day I learn vital lessons from her. My favorite is about trusting to yourself and do the work by yourself, for yourself only. Of course, we have friends and people in our lives we can count on, but they won’t build your life and dreams for you. If you like something and want it, then get it.

And my mother always followed this advice that she gave to me. She is a strong and outstanding businesswoman. I am brave enough to state this: my mother is an image of a modern woman. I am looking forward to becoming, at least, a part of her in the future.

I can’t describe how proud I am of my aunt and sister. My aunt is a physicist and natural philosopher. How cool is that?! I mean, I always tell people that if I had the ability to understand science and calculations, I would become a nuclear physicist or something else. In school, I always had problems with algebra, geometry, and physics, and I would be jealous (in a good way) of people who could easily understand trigonometry or what isotopes are!

My sister is an economist, who is currently getting a degree in microeconomics while raising her 2-year-old son! I don’t know what this is, but I am extremely inspired by her.

And of course, the queen of our kingdom – my grandmother. She is among the people that are called “tough cookie”. She was born during the World War II, lost her family, parents, home, property, but managed to raise her two little brothers and become a wonderful, sweet and loving person, despite all the difficulties. I was always amazed by the fact of how people born and raised during the war, who witnessed all the horror, caused by human race itself, still grown as happy, cheerful and hardworking people we know today.

These women are all still with me and I love them with all my heart. I’m sure anyone could point out to the phenomenal woman in their life and that’s wonderful. Shout out to all the mothers, sisters, aunts, daughters, girlfriends, wives, because they are killing it every single day! Here’s to generations of physicists, astronauts, economists, artists, writers, models, university graduates. Here’s to generations of strong and independent women across the globe.