SVETLANA BANDURINA

Height: 1,75m / 5‘9

Hair: blonde (naturally brown)

Eyes: hazel / brown

This thread is remembering former Russian model and art performer Svetlana Bandurina who passed away unfortunately too early. Svetlana came from the Leningrad/St.Petersburg area and was born in ca.1972. She was discovered in Leningrad in 1988 at the age of 16 when participating in the „Miss White Night“ beauty pageant (aka Miss Leningrad) which she has won. At that time she attended the pedagogical school in Leningrad.

After being discovered Svetlana decided to be represented by „Talinn school of photo models / Andrey Models“ - an early modeling agency / modeling school in Talinn not too far away from Leningrad. After finding out about her modeling ambitions Svetlana has been kicked out of the pedagogical school and relocated to Talinn where she got stuck having no visas nor work papers for Western Europe. She then appeared again in Moscow in Jun.1990 when participating in the Miss Foto USSR competition where she didn’t win but where she was able to connect with foreign modeling agents. She then somehow managed to get work papers and a visa and first went to Athens for modeling in around 1991 but also appeared quickly at Model Management in Hamburg, Germany - a connection she has made in Moscow in 1990. When her work papers expired Svetlana moved back to Russia and vanished from Western modeling. Instead she participated in another Russian beauty pageant which was musically supported by Sergey Kuryokhin - a famous Russian performing artist of the early Russian underground scene. They befriended and instead of being a model Svetlana became part of his eccentric performance team participating in countless underground performances during the 1990s.

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Towards the mid to late 1990s Svetlana vanished from the scene with no further online mentioning. Her name then appeared again in ca.2009 when her early death was announced at the young age of 38 without mentioning any reason for the early death.

Former Agencies:

Andrey Models Talinn

Model Management Hamburg

Unknown Greek agency

and possibly others

(Photos: my scan / Soullaway.livespot / Povad)

Special thanks to @Povad for the support and info!! 👍👍

Test pictures 1990 - photo unknown

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my scans

Ogonyok № 26-1991 magazine Russia

discovered by @Povad 👍👍