Teen models as young as 13-years-old ready to be shipped around the world star in Reggie Yates’ latest documentary on Russia.
Reggie Yates’ Extreme Russia: Teen Model Factory saw the presenter visit Siberia to meet the young girls who are going to extreme lengths to attract the international scouts and make it as fashion models in the West.
For some of the castings 90% of the girls didn’t even come close to making the cut, as the documentary showed casting directors rejecting them for the smallest of reasons.
One girl’s dreams were crushed as her hips are 1cm too wide.
Viewers took to Twitter and said the programme was both ‘interesting and disturbing’.
One viewer said: “Wow, loving the Extreme Russia series, even if the content is somewhat disturbing, kudos to you sir for keeping it real.”
Another posted: “Watching this Reggie Yates programme about young Russian models…quite interesting and a bit disturbing”
Watch the full episode on BBC iPlayer.
One casting director referred to the girls as ‘Ferrari’s without engines’.
“The role is to select girls and cast them all over the world, I expect to find 10-15 girls here. Most Russian girls are like Ferrari’s without engines,” he said, as hundreds of young women lined-up.
Another young hopeful won a competition and her family had to decide on the spot if she was to be sent to China to work, although another was happier at the thought of going to LA.
After seeing what they go through and Anya’s response to being rejected, Reggie said: “The lines of right and wrong are just so blurred.”
In this three-part series Reggie got up close and personal with very different communities in contemporary Russia, exploring what it’s like for young people there, 24 years after the fall of the Soviet Union.