In Soviet times, the word “model” was used to describe a prototype of an airplane or car, but not a person. And the girls on the catwalk, at best, were called fashion models. The official name of the profession sounded like "clothing demonstrator". But to become a leading fashion model, in addition to beauty and intelligence, the protection of the special services was required.
The era of Khrushchev is assessed in different ways, but the fact that under him the country made a leap forward is beyond doubt. Khrushchev decided to add an economic and moral component to the military might of the Union. The secretary general wanted to prove to the world that in the Soviet Union there are not people intimidated by repression, but educated and beautiful citizens. Cinema and fashion have become powerful tools for this PR campaign.
Dusty work
If success came to cinema quite quickly - which is only the ballad "The Cranes Are Flying", which won the Grand Prix in Cannes, then in fashion it was still necessary to prove to the French and Italians that the Russians were also worth something. The main creators of the "fashionable" breakthrough were supposed to be the designers of clothes (as they were then called fashion designers) from the Moscow House of Models on Kuznetsky Most.
As the clothing artist Nadezhda Belyakova recalled: “The task of the Model House was not just to create fashionable, beautiful things. It was intellectual and creative work to create the image of a contemporary. But creating beautiful clothes is half the battle. Another, no less important task is to demonstrate it profitably. And if in Europe or the USA, top models have already existed since the beginning of the 20th century, then in the USSR they knew little about this. The Soviet approach to modeling was simple and even rude. Girls who go to the podium in new clothes, according to the classifier of professions, were called clothing demonstrators.
Officials from the Ministry of Light Industry considered this work dusty, not hard and did not require intelligence, and therefore the salary was minimal - only 70 rubles. For comparison: a cleaning lady in the same Model House received 65 rubles. In general, the profession is not Soviet or socially significant. It is no coincidence that when in 1972 the aspiring director Nikita Mikhalkov married the model Tatyana Solovieva, he told everyone that she was a translator by profession. However, it was not easy and prestigious to become a leading model in Moscow.
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Beauty queens - Lubyanka agents
In 1961, an international trade and industrial exhibition was held in Paris. The Soviet pavilion was a success, and not only due to technical innovations and hard alloys. The fact is that at the pavilion the guests were greeted by tall and beautiful girls of the Model House. For the French, they were akin to aliens: beautiful, tall, big-eyed. Indeed, in Europe at that time the myth of the wretched appearance of Slavic women dominated.
The day after the opening of the exhibition, the French weekly Pari-Match published an article whose main figure was not the leader of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev, but the model of the Fashion House Regina Zbarskaya. In the article it was called “the most beautiful weapon of the Kremlin”, and this was not far from the truth.
Her career happened suddenly. In the late 1950s, Regina Kolesnikova came to Moscow from Vologda with the dream of becoming an actress. But the girl did not pass the competition for the acting department of VGIK and was able to enter only the economic one. And yet she continued to dream of a creative career. For a halo of mystery, Regina came up with a legend that her mother, an aerial acrobat, crashed, falling from under the circus dome, and her father, an officer, died at the front. At some screen tests, Regina was noticed by the novice fashion designer Vera Aralova and invited to try herself as a clothes demonstrator in the Model House. Of course, this was not what the girl dreamed of, but as a break-in, the occupation suited her. As it turned out later, the profession of a model for Regina turned out to be ideal.
Aralova quickly noticed signs of the beauty of the new European trend in her.
And Regina transferred her unfulfilled acting ambitions to the catwalk and became the first in a series of Soviet fashion models.
In 1961, Zbarskaya became a member of the delegation of Soviet models, who were entrusted with showing fashion on the Parisian catwalk. The fashion show of Vera Aralova then produced the effect of a bomb exploding. Models demonstrating Soviet novelties were also of no less interest.
Italian director Federico Fellini called Regina Zbarskaya Soviet Sophia Loren. Pierre Cardin, Yves Montand, Fidel Castro admired her beauty. Having received the unspoken title of "Soviet model number 1", Zbarskaya began to go to shows in many parts of the world. Although it was not at all easy to gain recognition both in the West and in the Soviet authorities at the same time. Yes, and in the House of Models, Zbarskaya had no less beautiful competitors, but they did not always get the go-ahead to travel abroad. So why one could shine on world catwalks, while others were content only with Moscow and Leningrad shows ?!
Run away - you'll regret it
At the end of her modeling career, Zbarskaya met a Yugoslav journalist, becoming his common-law wife. The novel ended in failure, and after the Yugoslav wrote a book where he directly indicated that Regina works for the KGB and was the mistress of almost the entire Central Committee. Colleagues of Zbarskaya tacitly confirmed the above, although they considered Zbarskaya the "red queen".
“She was really really cool. She knew several languages, played the piano superbly,”a model from the Fashion House recalled about her. Naturally, the beauty, which delighted Western men, could also interest the Soviet special services. “Moreover, she was released alone! She flew to Buenos Aires, ” another acquaintance told about Regina. - She had two suitcases of sable coats and dresses. She rode like "Khrushchev's slender messenger" as the press called her."
At the same time, several issues were waiting for other models before leaving, where their reliability was checked. The candidates were first examined by the Deputy Director of the Fashion House - Major of the KGB Elena Vorobei. Despite the fact that she recruited all the participants in the field trips, the latter spoke positively about her. Sparrow did not order, but urged the girls to be useful to their country. “If a foreigner meets you, keep the conversation going, find out his field of activity and do not be categorical in refusal,” one of the models recalled.
The acquaintances that could be made by Soviet fashion models became the subject of analysis by the KGB and the GRU. It is a mistake to think that the special services were interested only in the military secrets of the West, and that economic interests were also taken into account. But big businessmen sometimes fell in love with Soviet models. So, in the USA, Rockefeller's nephew was carried away by the model Marina Ievleva. For her sake, he flew to Moscow twice to propose to her. The visit did not go unnoticed by the KGB. Ievleva was summoned and hinted: "If you run away to the West, your parents will have a government house." This is what the prison was called in the old days. The expression “if there were a man, but there would be a job” had not yet disappeared from the memory of citizens, and Ievleva understood this. And although her romance with Rockefeller ended in nothing, before that she wrote more than one memo, which made it easier to conduct several foreign trade transactions.
Despite the fact that in the 1960s and 1970s there were escapes of ballet dancers during foreign tours, none of the models escaped. Although Western modeling agencies promised them mountains of gold. The reasons were simple. In the USSR, the girls had families. In addition, there were only “recruited” models in the delegation, and the publicity of this fact would have crossed out their careers in the West. When in 1972 Zbarskaya's main competitor Mila Romanovskaya gathered from the USSR after her husband to England, she was warned to keep her mouth shut. The model did not dare to disobey.
Alexey MARTOV