Larisa Sladkova, a weather reporter who's gained celebrity on the television station STS-Chelyabinsk for appearing in revealing outfits on air, will appear on the party list for the Russian Party of Pensioners in elections this September. Sladkova will compete for a seat in the State Duma (the lower house of the parliament.) The party will finalize its candidate list on July 9.
According to the news website Lenta.ru, the 43-year-old weather reporter says she avoids all social media because she receives too many negative comments from Internet users, but she says she's always had the support of her 20-year-old son.
Sladkova is trained as a fashion designer, and studied at a pedagogical university in the area. She got into weather reporting almost by accident, she says. One day, she was walking by the television studio and saw an advertisement for casting. She applied for the job and got it.
Sladkova says it was her idea to report the weather in an unusual manner, wearing particularly revealing clothes.
“After all, weather forecasts are a pretty boring format. I don't know about other people, but personally I was bored of watching a puppet wave his arms around endlessly. And STS is an entertainment channel. So it should be a little fun,” Sladkova told Lenta.ru in February 2016.