(Inset) Supermodel Ruslana Korshunova leapt to her death from the scaffolding next to her apartment in New York’s Financial District.
The suicide of Ruslana Korshunova almost three years ago stunned the world. A beautiful, seemingly happy supermodel, at the peak of her career, the 20-year-old had everything to live for. But on June 28 2008, the young beauty tragically leapt to her death from a building site adjacent to her 9th floor New York apartment.
She had no history of depression, and there was no trace of alcohol or drugs in her body. In short, the reasons that she took her own life remain a mystery.
Now a filmmaker claims that many clues point to a controversial organisation known as Rose of the World.
In his research for a documentary into the Kazakhstan-born model’s suicide, Peter Pomerantsev found many references to the Moscow-based group, which describes itself as ‘training for personality development’.
Writing about his experiences in Newsweek, he told how he discovered that a close friend of Ruslana, Anastasia Drozdova, also committed suicide, in 2009 in Kiev, under similar circumstances.
Like Ruslana, Anastasia was a budding model – and also ended her life by jumping from a block of flats.
The filmmaker, who acquired hidden camera footage and recordings of seminars at Rose of the Worlds, reveals that the group’s philosophy is based on a discipline called Lifespring, which, during the Eighties, was the subject of so many lawsuits, it was forced to shut down its U.S. operation.
Members, he explains, are asked to speak of their worst experiences, and each in turn relates horrific stories of rape and abusive parents.
Pomerantsev tells how members of ‘The Rose’ remember Ruslana as an ‘enthusiastic speaker’.
She is said to have discussed her father’s death and her failed romance.
Meanwhile, the article reports, friends of the two models noticed changes in their behaviour.
Ruslana’s social network page, on which she posted many poetic missives, was one of the ways she expressed her sorrow.
Her internet postings reflect an inner torment, with admissions that she was ‘hurt’ and ‘lost’.
In one, she tellingly wrote: ‘My dream is to fly. Oh, my rainbow it is too high.’
And the suggestion of flight is also echoed by Pomerantsev, who noted that her body was found 8.5 metres from the building from which she fell.