Some six years ago, those living in the same apartment block with her could watch the future lingerie star walking down the street from their windows on a daily basis.

“She was so tall and had such a beautiful stride that no one could miss her,” her former neighbor said.

She wasn’t missed by representatives of a model agency in the city of Chelyabinsk, where she went to study economics at the age of seventeen.

Her close school friend, Ekaterina Bereshchenova, says modeling was never Irina’s goal, and she went to the agency just to learn how to walk right.

“It all happened so quickly. Many people in our town don't believe that such a success for a girl from a remote Russian place is possible without some dirt mixed up. They’re just jealous. I know Irina very well. She achieved everything through hard work."

Ekaterina now catches up with Irina only on the Internet, and looking at her photos she says she still doesn’t see the cover-girl that Irina now is.

“For me she's the same cheerful person, who loved hanging out, wearing high heels despite being nearly one meter and eighty cm high. Yes, she was never shy about being a head taller than most guys.”

At school, pupils used to call Irina 'Naomi Campbell,' but her sky-rocketing career caught everyone by surprise.

Tamara Shikhaleeva taught the model biology. The fact that her student now appears on billboards worldwide most of the time half-naked does not make her less proud of Irina:

“I don't see anything wrong about that. I teach anatomy, and a beautiful body is something to be proud of. Irina has it, let her show it.”

And now when Irina is a long distance away from home, those who lived next to her for years say they still can’t believe that the ‘girl next-door’ is now any man’s dream.