I am a design systems specialist and a front-end developer originally from the Utmost North (Petrozavodsk, Karelia); currently living in Helsinki and working for Intergalactico – Nordcloud Design Studio.
Before, I had been living Amsterdam for less than a year and previously in Moscow, Russia for 5 years and working for Yandex.
According to official papers, my name is Varvara Stepanova, although most people just call me Varya.

More than 4 years I was a member of the BEM team. In there, I worked on open-sourcing the full technological stack that powers the Yandex UI framework. As a BEM adept, I still use the solutions in my current work and personal projects.

Besides the actual development of components, libraries and tools, I frequently speak at tech conferences, usually explaining the BEM methodology. I write articles in English and Russian, as well as tutorials and training projects to help developers perform their first dive into BEM. There are some links on the Articles and Talks page for your browsing pleasure.

In my spare time (haha), I study in Aalto University at IDBM programme which includes the topics of Business Design, Service Design, Industry and Market Researches and assumes a lot of project work.

I am keen on traveling and dream of having friends all over the world. If you're interested, here's the first personal thing to learn about me: I am passionate about cats, all of them (lions included).

On this site I publish my day-to-day writings as well as links to articles, projects and presentations.

Here are some obligatory (but useful) links as well:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Github