Anastasiia Metelkina and Luka Berulava: Old souls with young eyes
Pairs skaters Metelkina and Berulava teamed up ahead of the 2023-24 season and instantly got their partnership noticed.
They swept all their junior competitions that season, including winning the junior world title, finished second at the senior European championships and were seventh at the 2024 World Figure Skating Championships.
Their second season brought even more success: a first Grand Prix medal and victory, third place at the 2024 Grand Prix Final, and fourth place at the 2025 World Championships.
“He is strong, determined… very determined,” Metelkina said about why her partnership with Berulava has worked so well. “He is used to always achieving the goal that he sets.”
“She understands my character and accepts me for who I am,” Berulava added. “She is like clear water, just calm. And like me, she is determined; she wants to achieve everything. Sometimes she wants that real bad. This can get in the way, but I’m the same way too.”
It was not only the stellar results that put the Georgian pair into the spotlight, but also their unconventional program choices.
Their free from last season, set to Saltillo’s “A Necessary End”, was a story of an old man who gets a full rewind on life during a final dance with his lifelong companion, death.
“I am an old man at the start of the program. She is my death. In those four minutes, I re-live my whole life in front of my eyes,” Berulava said of Sergei Plishkin and Ivan Malafeev’s choreographed tale. “In the end, I leave”
While the program seems eerie at times, Metelkina – who wears a dress that resembles the torn Grim Reaper cape and ends the skate by putting a black hood over her head – stresses that the takeaway is positive.
“I am with him the whole way, and I’m not a villain. I will only take him when it is his time to go,” Metelkina said. “The message is that what we consider ‘evil’ is not always bad. Death is always seen as something scary, but in our story, I protect Luka in some parts of his life, and I take him only when it is his time.”
The ambulance sirens and late-night phone calls in Metelkina and Berulava’s free skate this season are also not meant to alarm spectators.
Choreographed by Benoît Richaud, it is a story of separation, but ultimately of coming together.
“It is about two people who lose each other and then find each other again,” Metelkina said. “It all ends well. Everything is good.”