The Times

Russian model Ruslana Korshunova dies in fall from New York flat

James Bone in New York 


A model nicknamed the Russian Rapunzel for her flowing hair, plunged to her death at the weekend from her home in a tower in New York.

Ruslana Korshunova, 20, a cover girl for French Elle and Russian Vogue, fell from her ninth-floor flat in the Manhattan financial district on Saturday. Police said they were investigating her death as possible suicide.

There were no signs of a struggle in the flat in which she had lived for two months, but a hole had been ripped in the construction netting that covered the balcony from which she apparently fell.

The model was wearing blue jeans and a purple tank top, but no shoes. Ms Korshunova, born in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, found fame after a model booker saw her in an article in an in-flight magazine about the German club in her home town of Almaty.

                                               


“I saw her by chance and she looked like something out of a fairytale. We had to find her and we searched high and low until we did.” Debbie Jones, a senior booker at Models 1, told British Vogue three years ago. “She's really incredible, with feline features and timeless beauty.”

The 5ft 9in model became known as “The Long Hair Goddess” for her locks, which she did not cut until she was 15.

The beauty, then 17, was hailed as “fashion's muse of the moment” by The Sunday Times, and British Vogue called her “a face to be excited about”. She strutted the catwalk for such designers as Jill Stuart and Betsey Johnson, and modelled in campaigns for Paul Smith, Moschino, Marc Jacobs, DKNY, Vera Wang and Christian Dior.

“She came in this morning, she smiled, no sense of depression,” Mahmoud Nakeeb, the doorman at her 12-storey building said. “She was a very sweet girl, always smiling, never depressed-looking.”

On a social networking site Ms Korshunova wrote: “My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high.” But in January, she wrote: “I'm so lost. Will I ever find myself?”

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Friends mystified by Ruslana's fatal decision

smh.com.au
June 30, 2008 - 11:25AM

Close friends of Ruslana Korshunova, the 20-year-old Kazakh model who plunged to her death from her ninth-floor Manhattan flat at the weekend, say they can't believe she committed suicide.

Korshunova appeared on the front covers of Russian Vogue and French Elle and was dubbed "fashion's muse of the moment" by the Times newspaper in 2005.

Police in New York reported no signs of a struggle inside the model's apartment and witnesses say they saw her leap from her balcony on Saturday, just three days shy of her 21st birthday.

But Kira Titeneva, who described herself as Korshunova's "best friend" from her home town, told the New York Daily News: "There's no way she would have killed herself. She loved life so much."

Ms Titeneva was also quoted in London's Daily Mail as saying: "I talked to her on Friday night and we were talking all the gossip."

Another friend told the paper that Korshunova, who would have earned around $5200 for a catwalk show, had been sending money home to her family in the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan and was "one of the sweetest, nicest people you'll ever meet".

The unnamed source told the paper the model had just returned from a modelling job in Paris and seemed "on top of the world".

"There were no signs. That's what's driving me crazy. I don't see one reason why she would do that," he said.

Korshunova's last hours were spent with a former boyfriend Artem Perchenok, 24, who told the New York Post he dropped her off at her apartment just hours before her death after they watched the Patrick Swayze film Ghost together.

Korshunova's doorman, Mahmoud Nakeeb, was also quoted in the Daily Mail as claiming the model seemed happy when she came home about 4am on Saturday.

"She came in this morning, she smiled, no sense of depression," he said.

But emotional postings on the beauty's social networking site in recent months hinted at an inner struggle.

"I'm so lost. Will I ever find myself?" London's Telegraph quoted Korshunova as writing three months ago.

The paper also quoted a post in January saying: "It hurts, as if someone took a part of me, tore it out, mercilessly stomped all over and threw it out."

The balcony the model fell from had construction netting around it which appeared to have been cut, according to the Daily Mail, which also wrote that Korshunova was shoeless and dressed in blue jeans and a purple tank top when she died.

Her agency, IMG, was reeling from the tragedy and gathering information about her death and work schedule, the Daily Mail reported.

"We're shocked and our heart goes out to her family," spokesman Zach Eichman was quoted as saying.


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