BECOMING a high wire walker when you have a fear of heights is not always the most sensible choice of professions but with Kristina Adrova, 16 it was a case of overcoming that fear to achieve that ultimate ambition.
As a child and living in the Moscow State Circus, Kristina would watch with both pride and envy as her mother walked the high wire and performed aloft a 20 feet high perch pole that was precariously balanced on a fellow performers head.
The problem was, Kristina had a real fear of heights, she would only watch the act from the lowest point of the seats in the auditorium and even on a trip to London when she was a child she would not go upstairs on a route master bus.
She told her mother how she would like to emulate her and the slow process of teaching her the high wire begun, first of all, on a low wire, just one foot off the ground and when she mastered that, slowly increasing the height foot by foot until she reached the ultimate goal of walking the high wire 30 feet above the most famous circus ring in the world.
It took almost five years but in many ways learning to walk the high wire has cured her fear of heights, “Going on the top deck of a double decker bus is now the norm and we can’t keep her out of lifts,” claimed her mother. ‘It just seems the higher she can get the happier she is.”
