In July 2026, while Erling Haaland was dominating headlines for Norway’s World Cup run, a short video posted by Russian influencer Mariya Kostromitina quietly broke the internet for a completely different reason. Her daughter Anastasia Kostromitina — a 20-something model from Moscow with roughly 42,400 Instagram followers — appeared on screen next to side-by-side comparisons to the Norwegian striker, and the resemblance was difficult to dismiss: the strong jawline, the pale blue eyes, the blonde hair, the build. Tens of millions of views later, the world had one pressing question: who exactly is Anastasia Kostromitina?
The Video That Turned a Moscow Model Into a World Cup Meme
The clip is disarmingly simple. Mariya Kostromitina — a Russian lifestyle and wellness influencer known online as @mariya___kos — films her daughter and asks in Russian whether she looks like a celebrity. What follows is a series of poses, outfit changes, and freeze-frame comparisons that place Anastasia’s face directly next to Haaland‘s. The jawline. The cheekbones. The wide-set blue eyes. The way both of them stare into a camera like they’re measuring it for distance. The internet didn’t need subtitles to get the joke.
The timing was almost too perfect. Norway was deep into the 2026 World Cup, and Haaland was inescapable — on match broadcasts, highlight reels, and sports feeds across every platform. Anastasia’s video landed right into that current and was swept along with it. By the time it spread from TikTok to X to Instagram, the comparisons had spawned memes, genetics debates, and the nickname ‘Haalandina’ in comment sections across multiple languages. Much like Sweden’s Julia Grop, Anastasia became one of the defining viral characters of this World Cup cycle — not for anything she did on a pitch, but for what she carries in her face.
Who Is Anastasia Kostromitina? The Model Behind the Meme
Before the viral moment, Anastasia Kostromitina — whose Instagram handle is @nas__kos — was building a modest but polished presence as a fashion model and content creator in Russia. Her feed spans photoshoots in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, and Vladivostok: running looks, summer outfits, event appearances, and the kind of clean editorial photography that signals agency representation rather than casual posting. She has worked with fashion brands, attended runway shows, and is represented by @motionmngt with agent @ivanstrokov.
Her exact age hasn’t been publicly confirmed, but based on her modeling work and the tenor of her content, she appears to be in her late teens or early twenties. Beyond the Haaland moment, there’s no deeper public profile — no major scandals, no controversial statements, no reality TV. She is, by all available evidence, a young woman who posts fashion content and happens to share a face with one of the most recognizable athletes on the planet right now. That gap between ordinary life and sudden global attention is part of what made the moment resonate.
Viking Genetics and Why the Resemblance Actually Makes Sense
The internet’s instinct to joke about Viking ancestry turned out to be less of a stretch than it sounded. Commenters who pointed to shared Northern European genetics between Norway and parts of Russia were gesturing at something real: the historical movement of Scandinavian peoples — Varangians — through what is now western Russia during the early medieval period left a documented genetic and cultural imprint. The specific cluster of traits that Anastasia and Haaland share — tall build, strong jaw, pale eyes, light hair — is precisely what population geneticists would describe as a Northern European phenotype with deep roots across that entire region.
None of that makes the resemblance less funny. But it does give the meme a layer that goes beyond random coincidence, which is probably why the ‘genetics’ and ‘Viking’ angles spread just as fast as the side-by-side photos themselves. The story became a minor lesson in history without anyone asking for one — and that, more than the jokes, is what kept it circulating for days.
