Snow Job
Siberia is the West’s new hunting ground for young girls to morph into supermodels—and the industry is warping their lives.
We’re glad this article found its way to you. If you’re not a subscriber, we’d love for you to consider subscribing—your support helps make this journalism possible. Either way, we hope you enjoy the read. Click to subscribe: subscribing
{
"type": "gallery",
"attrs": {
"title": null
},
"content": [
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12316",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tyCjyrVlYAByA9DkHzsk42bNQqFlR1KrzGibzJWn5FP6AM10FCRuP2pRN_QzFjW3uMX0CtzxmZGehe9Q9manB8_USg=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Andrew Silvius, a model scout for a Japanese agency, films a girl during a Noah Models casting in Krasnoyarsk. Noah Models, based in Saint Petersburg, is owned by a business-savvy Armenian, Tigran Khachatrian, who has described it in terms of the Biblical Ark. It is the largest modelling agency in Russia with 300-odd girls on its roster.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12317",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/Xa7Bn2SEIL6gN7I7meTm7PIySdhgX2e2PPXcVZiRLqlpPYr25-xrbgBHVIVo9I2wbwr9ARxJ7doSqXebDNZky2sB=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Girls waiting for their chance at a Noah Models casting in a suburb of Krasnoyarsk, once an ashen superindustrial complex and the centre of the Gulag system, but today the third largest city in Siberia and an academic hotspot.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12318",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/_sEaQrBARKe7b3qYZ1EYe0aBJJMRd2-3RXciUIm00KeowzuN2bPWcaJ1yqftLiw-hWI3aGLO8QBt2P8tkjJCJuZB=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "An aspiring model holds up a casting card with her name and height, age and measurements at a Noah Models casting in Tyumen, the oldest Russian settlement in Siberia.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12319",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/5Cln_JMcDfYVopCKOCPjzD5EdyD4144nv6AahIIiFbcyV_v-o7JOJ-Ukk-QFlXaGBsvo2t-fHCue4dt1byFCfj69hNA=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Nina Martyanova (centre) learning how to walk like a model at a class by Elite Stars, located in Novosibirsk, the most populous city in the Eurasian Steppe. Elite manages models, trains wannabes from 4-24 years old, and holds pageants.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12320",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/h1tnpMh7xm5PrQ8rraCFxmcb7duM2MYWy7tdRttQ7WP_h0DR3DuQKeHde5MUme8kmkP0XnRRIfEz3bvqehDmW2l3jRo=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Five-year-old Masha Tsegelnyuk, of Ukrainian extraction, attempting an asana at an Elite Stars yoga class. The agency drills students in skills such as catwalking, weight control, dance, international and Russian etiquette, and cosmetology.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12321",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/nNypwK9S2ecahGr6COLQ5tGVrwPxaqlld1PqWVRul-wTwg0DAk1JIcJWC3vXL5dyDsRDwMwJXib96lmkOF6f4Dvn6w=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Noah Models scouts considering 17-year-old Liza Kostina at Novosibirsk. She didn’t make the cut, going by the agency’s October 2011 name-list of this particular exploration.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12322",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/rPr-Kt0Wrf5hPvWe-37ltu6tNevU_mUiWd8-89H-YxTJuQeI6KiLKAvyXzwKpCZzjUwOqv-KiIEfD_WtlOvtRBai=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Masha Tsegelnyuk (centre, in orange), poses at an Elite Stars class. A 2011 report in GEO states that the school charges students €230 every three months, while estimating the average monthly wage here at €380.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12323",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/ZSLG_5xzlBE-8wYQue0lZYUat6v7y-c8Hu7Q6v9Snmqvh48zOUvqNxMe4KjLUcIPaqTAAmuyfKu8A375_wb2QH2s=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Yana Basalaeva stands to be photographed at a Noah Models casting in Tyumen. She made it through, and is now among Noah’s 159 “New faces”, with an extensive Japan shoot already in her fledgling model bio. This includes a ‘Wedding Catalogue’, a fact that is indicative of how unreal the world of fashion that she has stepped into is: Yana is just 16.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12324",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/Ocxb4lx1-75KAw-QRQDs2UjPMDypGPA-d5iuo19w4M7GkgJB-uOA_2lzu2_bccfBK3lXA2J3bIWqLxe7S8OfPdBcedg=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Young women wait to be seen by scouts at a Noah Models casting in Omsk, Siberia’s second-largest city, home to Fyodor Dostoyevsky and centre of the White Army’s resistance to the Bolsheviks during the Revolution.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12325",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/sPzQ3AxA8hfMGv-HBIzha8u5xx2b3iS189iFAVS2rivNclDg3n9_DN6g2A6nCewHIBjn6Eizh7oF6wc9mN1V_kHT1e8=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Daria Kostogladova, a model from the Novosibirsk bureau of the Moscow-based Global Russian Models agency, rests backstage after a fashion show held under an open-air, bitingly windy tent, at a private party in Kemerovo, a town about 200 km from Novosibirsk.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12326",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/c_jRVdvfQM5hkD2iaF6Mk8iEOAtd5PR2liczz-ogLcam8_K4jABW_hkBtoyypeoG1GXTn0tc7iqemkFnFbzFGWyWew=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Students of the “professional level” course run by the Russkiy Blesk Model Agency in Novosibirsk rehearse for their graduation fashion show at a local nightclub. Aspiring models complete a three-month “basic course for beginners” (“Classes are held at a convenient time for the students—on weekends and evenings”). They are then assessed for suitability for the advanced course.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12327",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/4IipEh76vDQzmcROLbzCPYs8jmTdi_x1KzZEAhalYgTW_r9lkYbFoFzIdX8el0XrUxT-UoG1_sT9e4SPKpLpm5nShQ=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Between modelling assignments as far afield as Paris and New York, 19-year-old Nastya Karzan, one of Noah Models’s brightest stars, relaxes with her family in the living room of her sister’s home in Novokuznetsk, a mining centre once known, tellingly, as Stalinsk. With her is her father, Oleg, and her niece, Tatyana. While the Karzans are supportive, they don’t really understand the workings of the modelling industry, or Nastya’s success.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12328",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/RXXsJb1B3hraB0D6U-NJgbLQ7cdb6FRDZMvffyeJ8mb36RjpXG0AtsF1jtHylZMmqWmDB_qYwqf6ie20UpKxTZKquQ=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Nastya and her sister Olga in the bleak, constructivist workers’ suburb of Novokuznetsk, where they grew up. This is the life that Nastya led before her 5’11” frame took her to Elite Stockholm, Mannequin Studio and Marilyn Agency, and onwards to Chanel, Christian Dior, Givenchy, Yohji Yamamoto and Cerruti. Olga took an altogether different route, studying at the Siberian State University of Telecommunications and Informatics but keeping alive an interest in hair styling and fashion—and Japanese anime.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12329",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/gGu1vD8Jw8tCsea1Glo3IFJNp595QF0qJTluwxpMmicGrOwWLQvManiacr_bdf4T3BAIu0ruYpQjUEDf30wEs0VKbg=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Nastya (third from right) in the preparatory line with other models ahead of the Antonio Berardi Autumn-Winter 2011-12 Ready-to-Wear show at Draper’s Hall during the London Fashion Week in February 2011.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
},
{
"type": "figure",
"attrs": {
"h": 1280,
"w": 1920,
"id": "12330",
"src": "//lh3.googleusercontent.com/k0esOPctN2jmSsI9WaYDIciJz-qSpt3vuIdjoCf6Aw6F_EKppQDes-VIcOuuuNTFmhmtAmG3VE0ar8O90uF4WpSqdQ=s0"
},
"content": [
{
"type": "caption",
"content": [
{
"text": "Nastya is worked on by a team of make-up artists and hair stylists before she takes to the ramp at the Antonio Berardi show.",
"type": "text"
}
]
}
]
}
]
} THE BLEMISHLESS SUPERMODELS in the glad-rag mags and the haute runways of the London, Paris, New York and Milan fashion weeks are among the most photographed women in the world. Increasingly, these girls originate in Siberia, that legendarily vast Cold War wasteland associated with the terrifying Stalinist Gulag, which today houses a hyper model-casting industry and training schools for kindergarteners to midteens.
Stalin’s paranoid regime, and those that came after, exiled into northeast Russia entire ethnic groups, the spetsposelentsy (special settlers): Volga Germans (the Russlanddeutsche, invited in the 18th century to immigrate by Catherine the Great), Chechens from the Caucasus, Baltic Latvians, Mongol tribes, Inuit, Tatars, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz....
Today, little more than three generations after the first exile brought together reciprocally suspicious ethnic peoples, the result of natural subethnic miscegenation is utterly captivating: the girls with huge eyes, elfin ears, cascading bronze hair and snow-flushed skin (the consequence of an annual average temperature of a subarctic -5 ºC) seem straight out of infantilist Japanese manga. These teenyboppers have in spades every characteristic that Milan and London and New York first toast, and then camouflage with thickest maquillage and mica.
Every year, snug in Train No 239 on the 9,259-km-long Trans-Siberian Railway, avid model scouts from both Russia and the West have been scouring the Eurasian Steppe running the second exile: expatriation to the Catwalks of Chic.
As documentaries like Searching Siberia (2009), and Girl Model (2012) showed, the search for petits modèles often resembles a hustle: Despite the utopian hardsell, no more than a handful of the girls selected will contract with the West’s major model agencies. Most will shuttle between Siberia and Asian centres like Tokyo, Hong Kong and Beijing, paying the rent for pokey, shared quarters, transacting through phrasebooks, sliding down the slope of cultural alienation.
Siberia is being trawled because much of the exoticism of its putative models lies in their scarcity; unlike in the West, you can’t pick them off the shelf, during moppet beauty pageants or after high school. This scarcity seems counterfactual when you consider that Siberia comprises the entire Asian portion of Russia, or 76 percent of Russia’s land area. But, in fact, it houses less than a quarter of the country’s population of 143 million; the density is three people per sq km, and the population of the largest city in 13.1 million sq km, Novosibirsk, tops out at 1.5 million. It’s obvious why the girls here are, in any worldly sense, naifs: they’ve never been exposed to The Walk; they know nothing about Cool; they don’t yearn to grace the cover of Vogue; they haven’t the faintest about the pitfalls of the adulation that the model scouts tell them is theirs for the asking.
Here, model castings are held in awkward, drab community halls and gyms. The participants arrive wearing bikinis, or sometimes underwear. Identified by number patches pinned to their modest two-pieces, their name, age and vital statistics written on white cardboard, aspirants walk and talk and pose, often with self-conscious artlessness, for beady-eyed evaluators. Those with ‘potential’ are photographed and videotaped, and their portfolios sent to model agencies all over the world.
For the children, the run-up to the casting can be traumatic: Siberian modelling schools—there are eight in Novosibirsk alone—are as deeply immersed in age-inappropriateness as their counterparts elsewhere, and put girls as young as four through training in pouting, dressing, sashaying, posing, dieting and cosmetology. At the scout stage, caprice and melancholy rule: the future will be decided on the evidence of a tottering sashay in six-inch heels that are glaringly irrelevant in Siberia’s geological autarchy of permafrost and sludge.
Thanks for reading till the end. If you valued this piece, and you're already a subscriber, consider contributing to keep us afloat—so more readers can access work like this. Click to make a contribution: Contribute