In a historic first, a Russian-born female is running for mayor of the Turkish resort city of Alanya. 

“It has been a long road,” Anastasia Petrova Cetinkaya told Al-Monitor in explaining how she decided to run for mayor in the March 31 election. “Three years ago I got this idea. Two years ago I started to write my election program.”

Petrova Cetinkaya, 36, was born in Murmansk, a port city on the Barents Sea in the far northwestern part of Russia. She graduated from two universities — one in Murmansk and the other in Oslo, Norway, where she studied political science. After graduation, she returned to her hometown, where she worked for a while as a business development manager at a foreign company. In 2010 Petrova Cetinkaya moved to Turkey, where she and her Turkish husband are engaged in the printing, design and branding business. She speaks five languages — Russian, English, Norwegian, Turkish and French — studies Arabic and plans to master Chinese. Petrova Cetinkaya also writes for local newspapers.

Alanya is a resort city in Antalya province in Turkey’s Mediterranean region. More than 30,000 foreigners live there, including Germans, Russians, Ukrainians, Iranians and Iraqis, among others. Thus, being a candidate with foreign roots does not appear to be a problem for Petrova Cetinkaya. However, she says that first of all she is a Turkish citizen and that she would be elected as a Turkish citizen by other Turkish citizens. She promises to improve local people's lives and create new jobs.