In Russia, Beauty Is a Way Out

0 Comments | Insight on the News, March 27, 2000 | by Jamie Dettmer

Only after drenching myself under the shower and a rigorous scrub to get rid of that distinct Aeroflot smell did I recall not having noticed any towels in the cramped bathroom -- not even one of those postage-stamp-sized towels that are usual in most Russian hotels. Oh, well, at least the water was hot and not opaque -- no mean feat for the Volga region.

As I was on the way out from Moscow to Rostov-on-Don to be a judge in a local beauty and modeling contest, Danny Cruz, the American businessman who invited me, remarked: "Have you been a guest at one of these things? Man, you are going to be a VIP down there, a rock star." I packed carefully: Black clothing seemed suitable for the planned GQ weekend.

But by shower time it had not been that impressive -- no promised car at the airport, no hotel reservation and, on this Friday night, no contest. Running in place to dry off, I pondered whether things could get worse.

They did. The lights clicked off. Smashing into the wash basin, I recalled being told about a Y2K conference of U.S. consulate officials in Russia last autumn. Officials had been gathered in Moscow at great cost from across Russia to hear experts flown in from Washington, also at great cost, explain what to expect when the year 2000 rolled around. The heating would go off, they were told. The lights, too, would be lost. Nothing would work, they were warned grimly.

A hush fell on the hall. And then a roar of laughter as a wag chimed: "So what's going to be different?"

In fact after a prolonged drying off, my Rostov weekend started to improve markedly, and all thanks was due to an Armenian-Russian restaurant and its English-translation menu, which qualified as pure poetry in error.

How could anyone resist an "Ovum an auk fried"? And I was drawn momentarily to a "Sturgeon Inundated" but, as the waitress couldn't tell me what it had been inundated with, it seemed prudent to skip on.

Later I noticed that they had an "Inundated Auk" so maybe the sturgeon would have been fine after all. "Sauce Red Acute" sounded worrying, even threatening, like a new sci-fi series from Fox TV. And the "Cleat Stuffed" -- well, best to leave that alone for reasons of taste. "Lobio without a Tomato" seemed interesting, but apparently was impossible to have with a tomato. I settled for a meat dish that was exquisite, although God knows what it was, let alone what it might be called in English. And for dessert? That was easy: "Ice Cream Sundae with Bog-Berry." Yummy.

By the time Saturday night rolled by, Rostov seemed okay. Economically it is all hustle and bustle -- unlike most other Volga towns such as Saratov, where the local unreconstructed Soviet-era bosses prefer order and control to making money or embracing the new. Rostov's location is to its advantage. As a key transport hub for southern Russia and the North Caucasus, it is benefiting from the Caspian oil business as well as the Chechen war. Smuggling goods in and out of Chechnya has proved a godsend for the town.

Even so, there are many trying to flee the place, either for the big-city lights of Moscow or, even more preferable, abroad. Hence, the huge number of women and teen-age girls competing in the frequently held modeling competitions in Rostov. And what a bevy of lovelies (to use the language of the British tabloid press) there was assembled at the contest that I attended.

They came in all shapes and sizes -- from the willowy to the more rounded. There were blondes and brunettes and redheads. Cry your eyes out, Hugh Hefner! "Can one date these girls?" I asked unselfishly.

"Only if you want to get shot," a fellow judge replied. "Most of them go out with the local mobsters."

There was something poignant about the whole affair. The dreams almost were palpable -- and so, too, the obvious hopelessness in the air. None of the 18 in the contest had a ghost of a chance to compete in a Western-standard modeling competition, pretty though they were. The two most interesting would do fine in the West as teen-age models for clothing catalogs, however. But the Rostov judges and sponsors didn't think like that. One of the two -- she is black -- wasn't even placed, though I put her second. And a 14-year-old I picked as the best was shoved into the second slot after the sponsors indicated they wanted another contestant to win, presumably the girlfriend of some local bigwig.

"What happens to these girls?" I asked the head of one of the modeling agencies. "They either end up working the hotels or they marry one of the local hoodlums" he responded. It seemed much better to be temporarily towelless in Rostov than permanently hopeless there.