“Attitudes towards men have not changed”: how does EC, who underwent 200 operations, who was doused with sulfuric acid by a rejected fan 20 years ago

On September 2, 1999, 17-year-old Eleanor Kondratyuk, an aspiring model and beauty contest participant in Sochi (she received the title “Miss Charm”), was attacked by several people who were asked by Ruben Grigoryan. The man was an entrepreneur and tried to achieve reciprocity from Eleanor, but was refused. The last time Kondratyuk saw him, he promised the girl that she would “cry tears of blood.”

Grigoryan came up with a plan for revenge. The businessman asked his friends Bogos Nubaryan, Artyom Voskanyan, Adgur Gochua and Roman Dbar to help him punish the obstinate beauty. The four mixed sulfuric acid with oil (to prevent it from being washed off) and watched the model in the schoolyard. Grigoryan himself left the city to divert suspicions from himself.

The criminals grabbed Eleanor by the hair and poured a lethal mixture, but the girl was able to take all her will into a fist and almost blindly run to the school, where an ambulance was called for her.

“The words that exist in the language are unable to fully describe my pain. It was much more than a “terrible” pain than a “terrible” pain. It was a painful, excruciating, unbearable burning pain that I had never experienced before! With each passing second, it became stronger and stronger, piercing deeper and deeper into the body. Being in a state of shock, for some reason I ran, not seeing where, and with all my sweep I crashed into some kind of rough concrete wall. This blow brought me back to my senses a little, ”Kondratyuk recalled in the book“ Eleanor. I chose life ”, which was released in 2018.  

Doctors said that the injuries received by Eleanor were incompatible with life, but the girl was able to climb out and even regained her sight (though not 100%). Ruben Grigoryan was eventually sentenced to 11 years in prison, his accomplices received a little less (one did not live to see the trial at all, having died in a criminal showdown). 

Over the past 20 years, Kondratyuk has already undergone about 200 operations, and this is not the limit. “Now I have unplanned operations, and emergency – if the condition suddenly worsens. How many more there will be, only the Almighty knows. But I always really hope that each of them is the last, “Eleanor shared in an interview with RT.

The woman confesses: she was able to look in the mirror only after several dozen operations. And it was not easy for her: “I didn’t see anything terrible there. But I was still depressed and upset – there were fresh memories of my previous life and appearance, when I still did not know what a scar, transplanted tissues, contracture and vision problems were. Then I thought all the time: “Why were so many operations performed and the result is still this?” It was then that I began to understand the seriousness of the injuries received. My mother and her words helped me a lot: “Do not anger God, you survived, this is the most important thing.” But the big question was how to live on. “

Now Eleanor is already far from the modeling business – she is a certified psychologist. The woman provides private consultations and constantly improves her qualifications. She is currently studying at the German Institute for Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. Kondratyuk decided to connect her life with psychology, because it once helped her a lot: “The tasks I faced were serious: how not to lose heart when everything disposed to this, what to use the strings of the soul to withstand everything and overcome, how not to allow your personality deformed when there is so much pain around. I am deeply convinced that a psychologist is as necessary as a surgeon or therapist. “

Surprisingly, after the tragedy, Eleanor did not begin to feel hatred of men – the woman is deeply convinced that criminals are determined not by gender or nationality, but by actions. On the way, Kondratyuk met real men. She married one of them not so long ago.