The High Price of Driving in Russia

Feb. 5, 2008 — -- Sometimes not even a black belt in martial arts can save you, or your car.

Anna Loginova, Moscow's popular model and glamour girl, died a week ago trying to prevent her Porsche sport utility vehicle from becoming one of the 14,000 luxury cars stolen in Moscow every year. Loginova, 29, was also a trained bodyguard.

She was something of a Russian Cinderella. And it is this fairy-tale quality that gave her so much exposure. Many Russians loved Loginova for being the village girl who hit the Moscow scene big time.

She came from an impoverished rural part of Russia, with high unemployment, five hours away — by car — from Moscow. She was already 24 when she started her modeling career — a relative senior to make it to the top in cutthroat Moscow.

That fateful evening a week ago, her defense training and instincts may have worked against her. Driving through a neighborhood in southeast Moscow, on her way to pick up a kitten she had found in an ad, she stopped at a crossing. A silver, Russian-made Zhiguli sedan pulled up, a man jumped out, dragged Loginova out of her SUV and sped off.

According to eyewitnesses, Loginova grabbed the door handle of her Porsche. Police investigators believe it's likely her hand got stuck there.

"That's when her profession as a bodyguard backfired — she reacted instinctively. How could she respect herself if she hadn't tried to stop the assailant?" psychologist Mikhail Vinogradov told Russian TV.

The speeding SUV dragged Loginova down the road. She died from head injuries. Her body was found down the road later that evening.

"This is a mistake even seasoned police officers make," Vinogradov said. "Someone grabs something from you. You react automatically to stop them. If she had not resisted, she would have just lost her car and not her life."

Loginova's death is making headlines in Russia even a week after her death. On Sunday, Russian NTV nationwide network carried two primetime news shows devoted to her death. Carjacking is not uncommon in Russia.

"Many people get killed here in connection with car crime, but it takes a high profile death for people to appreciate the risk they face in Russian cities when at the wheel of their dream car," a spokesperson for Russian traffic police told ABC News.

Loginova was a well-known Moscow model, a local celebrity and socialite. Her scantly dressed images adorned covers of men's magazines. Posh brands, so coveted by newly affluent Russians, hired her for their advertising campaigns. She became the Russian face of Chanel, BMW and most recently a French store selling delicacies to the well off.

In an interview for the chic Maxim magazine, she said, "Nothing in life is accidental. When advertising for BMW I had to take an advanced driving course. Then I met a person who took me to a firing range and put a gun in my hand. I realized I got a kick out of fast driving and firing guns, so why not use those skills professionally? A friend gave me the idea to set up a women's bodyguard agency. I took courses and here I am."

Loginova's all-women security agency is befittingly called Stilet — partly for stiletto heels, partly for the Russian word, meaning dagger. Companies providing personal security to rich Russians are plentiful. The demand is huge, perhaps disproportionately so even to the admittedly high crime rate. A bodyguard is something of a status symbol. Being seen in your sleek new car without your very own bodyguard, is just so démodé.

Loginova found a niche in this nearly saturated market: She provided bodyguards for the rich men's ladies — wives and mistresses alike.

"Anna opened the business in 2005. She recruited and trained her staff. She also worked as a bodyguard herself," Sergei Yegorov, Stilet's managing director, told ABC News.

In the Maxim interview, Loginova explained, "No one will think that a pretty face can have a hidden gun and may actually use it when attacked. And a shapely body helps to disarm the assailant. He'll stare at you and forget what he was there for in the first place."

NTV's "Main Hero" show that depicts the newsmaker of the week carried the message, "That evening Anna Loginova went against everything she taught her girl bodyguards. She was not belted in, the doors of her car were not locked from the inside."

The show's anchor appealed, "Please be more careful yourselves — these are only cars and they are not worth your lives."

Most Russians still remember the time when owning a car was the ultimate luxury. To this day, automobiles are treated with a reverence far exceeding their function. No wonder Russian cities are full of expensive cars — their owners often spend their last rubles for the latest model. The side effect? The criminal underworld turned this coveted commodity into good business.

Loginova was one of the many Russians who fell victim. "She was focused in her business, really wanted to get our security business going. But cars were her real weakness," one of her co-workers told NTV. "She really dreamed of that Porsche … and she died for it."

A spokesman for Moscow's traffic police told ABC News that 110,500 cars were stolen in Russia in 2005 alone; most of them were expensive luxury vehicles.

"It's organized business. People put in a request for a particular luxury model they have their eye on and the gang steals the car. Recently in Moscow we had a theft report on a $200,000 Rolls Royce. Many of the orders now come from Central Asia — Kazakhstan, Tadzhikistan and Uzbekistan. With modern car alarms and immobilizers car thieves need to be more cunning — and often more brutal as they can only steal the car by attacking the owner."

NTV interviewed Loginova's mother, who still lives in the poor Russian region of Vladimir, where she brought up her daughter.

Loginova's only son lives with grandma, so Loginova could get on with her career. Sobbing, the model's mother said, "Kiril is only 6, but a few days before Anna's death he remarked that it was a pity he didn't have a father and that he needed one."

"It was premonition," she said.

Loginova was in a confrontation with a would-be car thief just a few months ago and came away unharmed.

"I get out of the car," she told Maxim. "Just then a young man rushes up to me and grabs my hand to snatch the keys. I immediately used jujitsu on him — he ended up with a twisted arm and my elbow in his face. I took out my gun and aimed at him but at that moment a car drove up and he jumped into it. To tell you the truth, I didn't expect that everything would work out so well."

A week ago she was less lucky. Her beloved Porsche Cayenne that she'd given her life for was simply dumped not far up the street from where it had been carjacked.

"This Christmas she wrote a loving letter to her son saying that she loved him and always would … wherever she may be," Loginova's mother told NTV.

Fighting back her tears, Kiril's grandmother said, "If only she hadn't said, 'where ever I may be' … "

Moscow's traffic police were harsher and more to the point when assessing life in present-day Moscow. One of them told ABC News, "Want to drive an expensive car? Mind it as you mind your wallet."