Dubai: For a few terrifying seconds in 2022, Marianna Mustafina considered leaving Dubai.She was alone in the UAE after going through a painful divorce, with an eight-year-old son and just $300 (Dh1,100) in her bank account.She said: “I felt completely empty and lost. There was so much uncertainty, and I honestly had no idea what the next step was supposed to be. My biggest fear was financial. I was constantly calculating everything – bills, everyday expenses, transportation, my son, work. Even simple things felt overwhelming because I suddenly had to organise this new reality from scratch.”Mustafina remembers sitting in her bedroom, looking at her suitcase, and thinking: “Maybe I should just pack up and go home.”Her next thought, however, was: “No, that makes no sense.” By that point, Dubai already felt like home.The 38-year-old Russian national, who has now lived in the city for 14 years, said: “Even before the divorce, I had already imagined my future here. I love the scale of the city, the energy, the opportunities, and I could see my life continuing here. The idea of leaving Dubai actually scared me more than the uncertainty of staying.”From Russia to DubaiMustafina was born and raised in Naberezhnye Chelny, in Russia, and moved to Moscow for better opportunities. When she arrived in Dubai in 2012, she knew it was where she was meant to be.She explained: “I had come to Dubai because I wanted a bigger life and bigger possibilities. And somehow, later, even when everything around me changed, that part of me hadn't. Somewhere deep inside, I believed that my life here was not over… it was just changing. And I wanted to see what I could create from that new beginning.”After her divorce, Mustafina decided to take practical steps to remedy her situation. She leaned into what she knew best: content creation. “I was already interested in shooting and editing short-form content on my phone, so I started reaching out to people I knew, going to meetings, making test videos and taking every opportunity I could find.”Simultaneously, she started helping other women: “I was in one of the lowest periods of my own life, but at the same time, I was helping women from different parts of the world feel better about themselves. I taught them how to pose, feel more confident in front of the camera, and see themselves differently. Later, I created a series of videos around that.”Mustafina started receiving positive feedback from her clients, who told her they were making decisions they had been afraid to make before, or were seeing themselves in a new light. “Those messages gave me a lot of strength,” she said. “I think helping other people became one of the ways I was helping myself, too. When I felt lost, having something meaningful to give to someone else helped me feel useful, connected and alive again.”Getting her mojo backMustafina’s content creation business, Marianna Group, slowly gained traction, as well.She said: “In the beginning, it was just me with a phone in my hands. I would shoot content non-stop, and while everyone else was having lunch, I would already be editing the videos on my phone and sending them to the client on the same day.”Ironically, her efficiency and speed, which impressed her clients and became her hallmark, wasn’t born from a deliberate strategy to provide fast content: “I was doing it because I knew I still had to go pick up my son, manage our life, and switch back into being a mother. So, I tried to finish the work as efficiently as possible. And unexpectedly, that became a real wow factor for many companies.”Like many residents in Dubai with dreams and ambitions, Mustafina knew she had to Dubai-it to stand out: she aimed for excellence in every aspect of her work.She said: “I had one principle: if we take responsibility for a project, we finish it properly. If something goes wrong, we fix it. The company grew almost entirely through word of mouth. People saw how I worked, saw the results, recommended me to someone else, and one brand led to another.”Professional and personal hurrahsMustafina is the founder of the Marianna Group, and has also developed a reality series called The Mirror Series. Picture credit: SuppliedToday, the Marianna Group is a successful business, with a full-fledged team. The Group creates social media content for brands, and manages everything – from the initial idea and concept, to casting models, choosing locations, building the team, organising the shoot, coordinating videographers, makeup artists and stylists, managing the production process, and then handling editing, music selection and final delivery.Mustafina has appeared on magazine covers and billboards, worked with dozens of international brands, and even presented at the 1 Billion Followers Summit, the largest content creator expo, which was held in Dubai recently.Alongside her company, she has been developing something that’s just as important to her – what she describes as the ‘Mirror Method’, where she helps women truly see themselves, rather than constantly comparing themselves to others.She said: “Sometimes a woman comes in, thinking she simply wants better photos, but then something shifts. She starts noticing herself differently, feeling more confident, and that new perception can influence completely different areas of her life. That is why I started developing The Mirror Series, my transformation [reality series] project. We have already filmed the first stories, where women go through visual and personal transformation through styling, posing, photoshoots and the whole experience of seeing themselves from another perspective.”For Mustafina, the idea is not about making a woman look more beautiful: “It is showing her the beauty, strength and presence that were already there.”She hopes to scale Marianna Group into a much bigger creative company, as well as work with more women, grow The Mirror Series, and develop the Mirror Method further, on an international scale.A family that’s flourishingWhile she’s thriving in her profession, Mustafina is enjoying the fruits of her labour in her personal life.She was recently able to apply for a Golden Visa for her mother and bring her over from Russia.She said: “My mother had been coming to Dubai even before my divorce, especially to help me with my son. But back then, it was always temporary – we constantly had to think about visas, how long she could stay, and when she would need to travel again.”The Golden Visa changed everything. Mustafina said: “For me, that was a very emotional milestone because it gave her real freedom and stability. Today, she spends around eight months of the year with us in Dubai, and it feels much more like she is truly part of our lives here, rather than simply visiting.”Her son is thriving, as well. Now 12, he loves his life in Dubai and is growing up happily. Mustafina said she hopes she has modelled to him how to move through difficult situations, head held high.She said: “I hope that by watching me, he learns that circumstances can change completely, but you can still choose how you respond to them. You can rebuild, start again and continue moving forward without losing yourself in the process.”Living the Dubai-it lifePlugging away for years, by caring for her family, building her business, and growing her personal project, Mustafina said she had never stopped to consider how far she’d come – until she heard about the Dubai-it philosophy.She said: “For a long time, I was simply moving from one goal to the next. I would achieve something, then immediately start thinking about the next step. But when I saw the Dubai-it initiative, it actually made me stop and look back at my own journey. And I remember thinking, ‘Wow… this is actually a lot.’”She credits the city for helping her big ambitions see the light of day: “I've always been the kind of person who questions limits. If someone says, ‘This is impossible’, my first reaction is usually: ‘Why? Maybe there's another way.’ And in Dubai, that way of thinking felt natural. The scale of the city, the ambition, the speed, the vision – all of that felt very aligned with how I already saw life.”The city gave her permission to think bigger. It’s a place where her big goals “didn’t feel unrealistic. It gave me access to people, ideas, industries and opportunities that helped me grow much faster than I think I would have elsewhere.”Most importantly, it helped her start again, from scratch.Mustafina said: “Honestly, I feel that Dubai truly rebuilt my life. It gave me the space, the energy and the possibility to become who I am today. And maybe the biggest thing it changed in me was the scale of what I believed was possible.”Dubai has already shown Mustafina how much can change when she allows herself to think bigger. But she has a hunch: “I still feel that this is only the beginning.”
