Though the death of 20-year-old Kazakh model Ruslana Korshunova after falling from her New York balcony has been officially ruled a suicide, wags had already predicted that cranks would immediately seize on conspiracy theories involving the Russian mafia. From digging through Korshunova's blog entries to Zapruder-filmic analysis of death scene photos, no menacingly Slavic stone shall remain unturned. And of course, when you do look under the biggest, heaviest, most lichen-encrusted rock, you'll find Geraldo Rivera airing footage of Korshunova's corpse on a stretcher.
Beyond that, the basic premise of the conspiracy theory is that the Russian (and one assumes, Kazakh) underworld colludes with their semi-legal oligarchic corporate counterparts and corrupt government officials to traffic in high-dollar model flesh. It’s hard to find anyone willing to articulate this theory coherently, much less put their name to it. But here’s a reasonably complete, if bonkers, version. All spelling sic:
“But another theory has been delved upon by some authors of the fashion industry who claim that Ruslana´s death might be related to the model wanting out desperately and not being allowed to do so by the Paris-NewYork-Moscow mafia that controls teeange models. Some reports have linked the economic giant Gazprom with creating a web of model managment and discovery with a a tightly controlled escort spinoff that sets up supermodels with corporative tycoons.”
You may or may not recall that Gazprom is the Russian gas conglomerate that’s enjoyed many years of scandal; it’s also been the object and subject of Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s malign influence. The idea of such an outfit getting involved in a “web of model management” is kind of hilarious, though morbid given the present topic. Korshunova’s mother traveled all the way from Kazakhstan to retrieve the body, apparently without interference from the “Paris-New York-Moscow mafia.” Histrionics seem limited to the creeps, as even Korshunova’s main fansite merely colored the page black and noted “You will be missed.” via
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
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