Russian model Eleanor Kondratyuk, who was doused with acid 20 years ago after she rejected the advances of Sochi crime boss Ruben Grigoryan, spoke about life after what happened and almost 200 operations. The interview with the model was published by RT.
According to Kondratyuk, at first after the incident, she could not look at herself in the mirror and felt very depressed due to serious changes in her appearance. She was especially supported by her relatives, and also helped by consultations with a psychologist.
The woman stressed that her attitude towards men has not changed after the attack. “Criminals are not defined by gender or nationality, but by their actions. I have met real men in my life,”she said and cited the example of a school teacher who saved her in the first minutes after the incident, who uncovered the crime of the head of the Criminal Investigation Department, and who performed her first complex operation on the doctor of the Sochi hospital.
Currently, the woman has nothing to do with the modeling business, she works as a speech therapist and advises clients in need of post-traumatic rehabilitation. “It is very important not to slip into the very depths of endless despair. I know from myself,”she said.
Kondratyuk also announced that she was going to write a book about what she had to go through. According to the model, her experience of treatment and struggle for health can be useful to other people, help them "gain vitality" or "save from despair."
On September 2, 1999, on the eve of her departure to Moscow to participate in a beauty contest, 17-year-old Kondratyuk was attacked in the courtyard of the Sochi school: the criminals grabbed the girl by the hair and doused her with a concentrated mixture of sulfuric acid and vegetable oil. Her face, throat, neck and eyes were burned. Doctors assessed her injuries as incompatible with life, but after spending several years in hospitals and undergoing about 200 operations, she survived and was even able to regain her sight. However, her health has not yet been fully restored.
The year before, the girl had won the Miss Charm title at a beauty contest in Sochi. Local crime boss Grigoryan began to show her attention and, having received a series of refusals, promised that she would "cry with bloody tears." According to the results of an investigation that lasted for almost three years, his guilt was proved: the customer was sentenced to 11 years in prison, and the executors - Bogos Nubaryan, Artem Voskanyan, Adgur Gochua - to terms of six to eight years in a strict regime colony. Another participant in the attack, Roman Dbar, died before the trial in a criminal showdown.
