"Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind"
- John Lennon & Paul McCartney, "Back in the USSR"
Born in Kiev while the Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union, Victoria Zdrok came to the University of West Florida as an exchange student towards the end of the Gorbachev era. "Of course, I love it here, and I decided to stay," she gushes.
If America is the fabled Land of Opportunity, Zdrok has made the most of it: She's now a U.S. citizen, has earned a law degree from Villanova, and is a member of the New York and New Jersey bar.
She points out the irony in the collapse of Soviet Communism and the fact that many of the most hardcore, least-regulated Web sites are now based in Russia and the Ukraine. Stalinist Puritanism triggered what she calls "a rebound effect" - a sort of sexual glasnost - and capitalism has led to poverty and sex recruitment of tall, blonde Slavs with the wide, high cheekbones that are popular overseas.
Indeed, Lenin would almost certainly spin in his Moscow mausoleum if he saw Zdrok today: She is a tovarisch who enjoys the fruit of her labor, and has found her own "workers' paradise" online. She specialized in international business transactions, but while studying, developed another rare specialty - an "October Revolution" that changed her life. A scout for Playboy magazine discovered Zdrok at a Chicago disco, and she became 1994's "Miss October." The Slavic blonde beauty had said she had never really thought about modeling until then. Since her first Playboy shoot, "I've been in over 17 foreign editions, seven catalogue covers, and several video covers," she says. The cover girl even graces Playboy's early 2000 "Wet and Wild" issue, and she's lost count of how many newsstand specials she's posed for.
Zdrok calls Playboy a great company to work for, and says Hugh Hefner "is a really nice guy, very down to earth, very humble, actually, rather shy." The former Playmate has been booked for parties at Playboy's LA Mansion, and has "done lots of promotions for Playboy all over the world, for Playboy TV, the video department - it's really a huge corporation, there's a lot of work for models," she says.
A clever capitalist, Victoria parlayed her Playboy fame into other work. A number of agencies have represented her, and she's been a spokesmodel for numerous cigar and liquor companies, auto conventions, and Tri Star Web (www.tristarweb.com). She also appears in the CD-ROM and home video versions of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Sex, sold via Adam & Eve (www.adameve.com) and her site (www.PlanetVictoria.com), which she operates in partnership with LA attorney Steve Sloca.
But Victoria's secret is that she gained her greatest financial success in cyberspace. "The Internet came along, and with it, the possibility of really great income," she says. "I started Planet Victoria.com, and discovered there's really serious money to be made in it. I quit the firm, and just concentrated on the Net... I took over the site, and it became really successful. I also began my own hosting company (www.cybermatewebservices.com), which now has 17 to 20 Playmate and model sites. It's all a celebrity server, for well-known pinup girls, supermodels, Playmates, Penthouse Pets, and swimsuit models."
Zdrok's own site features her wide ranging modeling portfolio, which includes non-nude gigs for bridal, guitar, and other magazines. Zdrok says she does not do hardcore, only simulated sex. "Wild girl-girl action is what really sells," she says. "It's kind of new; all the Playmates are doing it." She's even turned the site into a family affair with a section titled "My Naughty Family Album": both her 53 year old mother and sister appear here - the former topless, the latter nude. They joined Victoria for a recent guest spot on Howard Stern's show, which she claims yielded 5 million hits in one day.
Zdrok estimates her site's membership at roughly 1,000 individuals. Asked what her income is, Zdrok laughs and says it's much more than she would have earned as a lawyer, although she adds that a legal background helps her business.
Regardless, she says the site has opened new opportunities for her. "I used to make most of my income from Playboy and other modeling jobs," she reveals. "Now, for the past year, my Web site's membership has skyrocketed, because I've really been promoting it. It's my main source of income. So, I find myself turning down modeling jobs. Because it's too much trouble - I'd rather stay at home and play with my computer," which has become a full time job for Zdrok, although she hires a Web master and still models for select jobs.
"It's great to be in control, and to know your efforts pay off," says Zdrok. "And you get paid every two weeks. In the modeling industry, it always takes forever to get paid, because you're an independent contractor. It's great to have your own business!"
