How the icing queen Julia found a new life in theWest
RUSSIAN contestant Julia Chernogorova, 21, impressed the judges with her intricate Russian doll cake last week but The Mail on Sunday has learned that her unflappable demeanour hides a painful family secret.
Growing up in a mining town in the frozen wastelands of Siberia, Julia made the discovery that Yury Averin, the man who raised her, was not her father, but her stepfather. Her biological father Alexey left the family home when she was just an infant and has not been in touch since. Julia’s own attempts to trace him have come to nothing.
‘We don’t talk about him,’ said Julia’s mother Natalia Averina, 43. Another family member said: ‘At first Julia thought her stepfather was her real father. When she discovered the truth later, she tried to find her real father in her early teens but had no luck.’
Julia’s grandmother Nadezhda taught her to bake in the cramped family kitchen of their Gorbachev-era block of flats in Kemerovo, a mountainous region that sees just 60 days of sun a year. Her life took an unexpected twist, however, when, aged 17 and on holiday with a friend in Turkey, Julia met and fell in love with British electrical engineer Matt Laughton, now 24. The couple married three years ago.
One close friend in her home city said: ‘She took a risk by marrying a foreigner, relocating to another country and she won. I see this TV show as her reward.’