Died in beauty
Why is the top model Ruslana Korshunova plunged to his death? A search in New York.
By Kerstin Kohlenberg Photos Erika Larsen
In addition to the balcony door is still moving the crate. Unnecessary clothing, cowboy boots and light green shoes is on it. A roller suitcase is unpacked in the corner, on the radiator are stacked packs of cigarettes, which is nine floors down Water Street.
It is early afternoon of 28 June, a Saturday, the area at the tip of Manhattan, is dead. Three months ago, Ruslana Korshunova has moved in here. On the floor are books, fresh linen, a plush green turtle. In the closet are white high-wedge heel shoes she has worn on the catwalk. The walls are bare.
On Monday, it has come back from a five-day photo shoot in Paris. Then she was in Atlanta on Wednesday once again New York, an advertising campaign, Friday photos for the luxury department store Neiman Marcus. On Monday to continue the job. Ruslana daily rate is $ 7,500. There are still four days until her 21st Birthday.
Ruslana opens the balcony door. In front of the balcony is a black protective netting, will be built next door. Ruslana cuts to the network with a knife, looks down at a large wooden roof over the sidewalk. If they land on it? It revised its plan also cuts the orange plastic net to the adjacent shell rises to the railing and jump onto the building. Then she falls down himself. Without shoes, jeans and purple shirt makers, with their keys in his pocket it is at 14.30 clock in front of the house next door. A street vendor she has seen, the final meters.
The reconstructed events, the police and closes the case the next day. Suicide. In the media, is that Ruslana was depressed and overworked. It is said that it was seeking to exit the business model. They should have had money problems, and translations appear from their Russian Social-networking site Odnoklassniki (classmates) to: texts in which she questions the meaning of life. Ruslana appears as a spindly exploited these girls who did not survive the tough business model.
One and a half weeks after Ruslana's death, the door to the balcony is open again. The traffic is so loud that one can hardly talk. Sitting on the sofa Ruslana ex-boyfriend Artem, 24, her best friend Kira, 23, and her manager. The manager, late 30s, will not he tell his exact age, can be accompanied by a silent model and make phone calls. Even his name he will not read in the newspaper, not a dead model is good for business. Kira has crossed her long legs and leafs through a book of Ruslana. They would also like to become a model, but it is not as beautiful as it was Ruslana. Now they makelt apartments. Artem, extending the two women only up to the chin, walks with a shaved head in the apartment and grabs the green plush turtle, "which got I bought her in our first vacation," according to an application form for the Columbia University to study "they wanted ". He goes to the balcony door, "Ruslana was still afraid of heights. You do not even smoke on the balcony."
The manager now has the phone over and immediately takes over the conversation. "Ruslana was great in the shop. She was about to make a million a year. Bring you are there and why she was barefoot? Who jumps barefoot in a body shop, where nails are on the ground and why it does not have a farewell letter leave and why the police have not interviewed by us in detail, and why is the senior police officer driving on the day after her death on holiday? "
Artem was the last to Ruslana was seen alive. "She has complained of abdominal pain, but otherwise she was, as always," he says. He had picked up on Friday evening against 23 clock at home. They watched TV with his parents. Ruslana fell asleep watching television, he woke her up and drove her home. Since it was four clock in the morning.
Kira also can not remember anything unusual. It has Ruslana last seen on Thursday, two days before her death in Central Park "She came from a shooting, her hair was very curly." And then you say Kira the phrase that in the next few hours, the mantra is the three on the sofa, "You would never have taken his life."
Displacing three people here a little, because suicide would reflect badly on them? The ravens friends who want to see the fairy tale character Ruslana? Ruslana, the beauty, Ruslana, the turnover makes Ruslana travels to the world, Ruslana, which brings from Tokyo fun mobile trailers, Ruslana, is to see the home in the Dior ads in shampoo advertising and perfume clips, while Kira's office Artem's and installed fire extinguishers and the manager conceded percentages?
Or their doubts are justified, and if they stuff now not travel guide, French and English books, Russian poetry, Kant's metaphysics of morals and the book It's how good you are, it's how good you want to be in a box to pack her up a life which, as they say, was happy?
Ruslana is never one of these Russian girls have no future. It is a city boy who grows up in the center of Almaty, former capital of Kazakhstan, a city surrounded by snowcapped mountains. Her father died when she was six, but the family is financially well and the mother works as a cosmetics saleswoman. Ruslana is in a gifted children, learn German, play the piano, taking voice lessons. And she has this floor-length hair. You are the dream of her mother, and after it. Until Ruslana 16, she washed her hair not once himself.
It is these hairs that give it the first job as a model. One teacher, who is working the way for the flight magazine Asia fall on them, and so Ruslana poses with 15 for the liberal magazine in Tarzan cover under a palm tree, open the chestnut hair nearly to the ground.
"She was shy, but she has been working well," recalls the photographer Boris Brul. On a flight to Moscow Talent Scout Tatiana Cherednikova the magazine sees in June 2003. But Ruslana's mother is not interested in a modeling career for her daughter, says Brul. She wants Ruslana studied. Cherednikova know what to do in such cases. She flies to Almaty and persuaded the mother to agree to at least sample images of Ruslana.
Then it goes very quickly. In mid-November Cherednikova shows the images of a British agency. In January 2004, Ruslana, she travels alone to Moscow, is photographed for the Russian Cosmopolitan. She still wears braces and is only 1.74 meters tall. All the same. She flies to Paris, takes photos for the magazine L'Officiel. She now has an agency in Moscow, London and Paris. In the spring she returned to Almaty, to graduate from school, can their braces removed. In September 2004, it runs on the Fashion Week in London for Paul Smith, Kenzo and Preen. She speaks fluent German, but not a word of English. She is now 17th
And makes debt. For a magazine route it stands for days in a thin dress in the snow storm. "There is money for such a little magazine stories, the flight costs almost always more than we deserved," says Tatiana Cherednikova on the telephone in Moscow. "But such editorials are important for the start."
The Agency interprets the cost of set creation, travel, accommodation, Ruslana have to repay them from their later salaries. Each new set creation, each courier service will be added. This is standard in the industry. In addition, the agencies take commissions on the merits of the models. Agencies in London and New York retain 20 percent, Milan 40, sometimes 50 percent, in Paris to keep almost all the 70 percent of the fee.
Ruslana is lucky, she gets a well-paid advertising contract with Clarins, in November 2005, she on the cover of French Elle, who celebrates it as a new face. She tells the magazine that she wants to explore the world. She now commutes between London and Paris. It is for a few weeks in Tokyo, she dares the leap to New York. There, where the most money is where the largest customers are the best deal. It is now 18th
Katerena sits at a long wooden table in a Belgian restaurant near Union Square in Manhattan. Within a few hundred meters here all the major New York modeling agencies are located. Even Marilyn, the agency was in the Ruslana in the first two years in New York.
Katerena wears Chucks, her thin legs stuck in plaid pants. She also works as a model, they also began with 15. Katerena knows Ruslana from their old flat in Brooklyn. Before Ruslana moved there, she had lived in some model apartments that are provided by the agencies for a high rent. There are bunk beds, the girls change weekly. From there, the agency sends the models to countless auditions.
"In the early years, it is important for a model that makes it a name, otherwise it is getting older and gets lost in the flood of new young faces," says Katerena. Cover pictures are important, magazine tracks from well known photographers and advertising for major brands. Ruslana was under contract for Pantene hair care products, Dior make-up, Paul Smith, DKNY, Moschino, not a bad start.
Also Katerena was once at this point, but it went no farther. She suffered from the constant diet under the journeys, always in the air, always new people, no friends, she missed her home. "I am now 25 and I feel as a survivor of the business," she says. She is sometimes credited only sometimes, besides trying to raise a fashion line.
"If we start, we are children who look like adults," says Katerena, "there should not be surprised if we react like children." Ruslana was a shy child, "and always a little more seriously than any other." In her bag stuck Ruslana colorful buttons, as they have school children in their backpacks. She cried quickly, she was emotionally vulnerable.
A few days later, Artem sits on the red sofa in his garage office. He made two years ago with a self-installer. It's hard to talk to him about Ruslana. Again and again he returns to the police. He believes they have the death just as quickly declared a suicide, to save money. He had heard, says Artem, that had been broken into lower accident a few weeks before Ruslana floors. Someone had climbed onto the balcony and from there into the apartment. Thus, even with the determined Ruslana been.
Neither the police nor the caretaker or the property management can confirm this. There was no break-in. Artem still believes in it. Because anger is better than mourning.
Like almost everyone is friends of Ruslana Artem Russian, the only one of them, who grew up in New York. He wanted to marry Ruslana. A year after they met in Ruslana WG had two brand-new skyscrapers in one in Queens were taken with a view of the skyline. "The cat who I have given her, we called our child," said Artem. Both go camping, fish, much alone. But most of Ruslana's going.
Early last year, she is four weeks in Tokyo, she calls him, crying because she is alone on Valentine's Day. Artem buys a pair of diamond earrings and flies to Tokyo. He remained for two weeks. After he left again, writes Ruslana him on his MySpace page: "welcome back home my love, miss you soooooooooooo much, from first minute, it's so empty here without you .. why we are so silly? You and me .. last days. "
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