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Girls yearn to be supermodels in the new Russia
April 5, 1997
Web posted at: 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 GMT)From Moscow Bureau Chief Eileen O'Connor
MOSCOW (CNN) -- Not too long ago, Russian girls aspired to be good workers or mothers -- the ideal Communist model.
Now they aspire to being a different kind of model -- a supermodel -- a high-paid fashion star like Claudia Schiffer or Cindy Crawford.
"I simply have this hope that out of my little girl will come a top model," says Suzanne, a mother.
Like a growing number of Russian mothers, she dreams that her daughter will strike it rich in the glamorous West. But she also is realistic.
It takes hard work to compete as a model in Russia, and the price is high. It costs $60 a month, or 300,000 rubles, to enroll in one of Moscow's modeling schools. That's nearly a month's wages, just for a chance at the spotlight.
While many want their daughters to succeed, the director of the Model Show School in Moscow laments that few do. And some daughters have different goals: They enroll to gain self-confidence, socialize and have fun.
"Some quit when they aren't successful," Alexei Veselov, school director, says. "They have crying fits. But we are used to it. We try to make parents and children overcome the stress. We don't force them."
At the very least, kids say, they learn how to move and to make an impression. "On the catwalk I feel like I'm such a big star, like everyone knows me," one student says.
But even for the few who make it, the big money can elude them; modeling in Russia is not a lucrative profession. Magazines such as Nya-Nya can't afford to pay much.
In fact, rather than paying its models, some magazines charge parents for the privilege of having their girl's photo published on the cover.
Like much in the new Russia, glamour comes with a price tag.
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