Ruslana Korshunova, 1987-2008

R.I.P.

That’s some hair you got, Ruslana…While it’s always tragic when a young person kills herself, I wasn’t inclined to eulogize Ruslana Korshunova, 20, the pretty Kazakh model who apparently jumped to her death from her 9th floor apartment this past Saturday. I’d never heard of her, though, clearly, I probably saw her, based on the level and prominence of the work she was doing—ads for DKNY, Marc Jacobs, Vera Wang, or this Pantene piece, above, featuring her lengthy and much idolized tresses.

However, a couple of details concerning her death have stuck with me.

Ruslana Korshunova’s apartment buildingFirst, the picture at right, from a NY Daily News article, shows Korshunova’s building, No. 130, the black-shrouded one next to some construction on the left.

I’m very familiar with this site, because I pass it every Friday going to and from my radio show, NONFICTION, on WBAI. This view is the one I see when I leave the station and wait at the corner of Water and Wall Sts. to cross the street and walk up Wall to the No. 2 train, going home. The lengthy green awning overhangs a 24-hour deli, just barely seen at the extreme bottom right of the photo, where I’ve bought food during some of my late-night studio production sessions. That Korshunova killed herself Saturday afternoon means I walked by the site about 18 hours earlier. Hardly a near miss, I know, but it’s just a little weird, and, again, very sad.

Secondly, a NY Daily News piece, “Model’s Web rants pined for love,” like many such articles will, tries to figure out how a woman with so much promise could take her own life. (Korshunova had been modeling for fewer than five years.) In order to do this, the paper reprints some of her troubled, passionate writings:

“Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably,” the sandy-haired knockout wrote in a poem that concluded: “And never regret anything that made you smile.”

The Kazakh beauty wrote that love “blinds,” “sets souls afire,” and “is always the answer” in emotion-soaked passages posted on a social networking site.

Korshunova volleyed between Russian and English in her heartfelt prose, but love was a central theme no matter the language. “Do not confuse love and desire,” she wrote in Russian in her most recent posting May 30. “Love is the sun, desire – only flash. Desire dazzles, and the sun gives life.”

The soulful note warns of the perils of sacrifice.

“Love does not take away from one in order to give to another,” wrote Korshunova, a 20-year-old thousands of miles from her native Kazakhstan. “Love – this is the essence of life. But you will not give your life to another.”

Korshunova’s most telling message came three months ago: “I’m so lost. Will I ever find myself?”

Smile…It’s kind of odd, but what struck me the most, besides the pain of her words, were her words. It’s a stereotype that young people in every other part of the world are more intelligent and better spoken than the ones here, but reading Korshunova’s thoughts—the News reproduced more of them—it’s hard not to believe that. A shame, both ways. She was probably a really interesting person to know.

Her family, obviously, is shocked and devastated, and her mother has already flown the 6,400-mile distance from her Almaty, Kazakhstan home to New York to claim the body of her daughter. (According to the World Health Organization, suicide rates for females 15-24 in the country are more than triple the rate of those in the U.S.) My mother has always said, “It’s the worst thing to bury your own child.” Indeed, this woman’s grief must be unrelenting and unbearable. Pray for her.

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