Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova says her native country feels safer than other parts of Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic

Natalia Vodianova, the Russian supermodel, mother of five, and new wife of mega-rich French businessman Antoine Arnault, believes it's safer to be in her homeland during the coronavirus crisis than most of the rest of Europe.

Speaking to US broadcaster CNBC, she said that the early experiences of Italy and France gave Russian officials a warning that helped them be better prepared. ‘One example that I see is that we (in Russia) have very cheap and very good tests available immediately to any individual around the country. Almost for free," she explained. "You would do a test today, you would have the results in the evening, or if you did it in the evening, you would have the results in the morning, which is not the case in Europe (sic), where it takes longer to wait to understand if a person has Covid. Therefore, there is more risk of spreading Covid around while the person is waiting for the results.’

‘I do believe my country has coped incredibly well and I feel my family is safer there than in France (where she is based), for example. I see a huge effort is being made (in France) but somehow people are not taking it seriously enough," she added.

The model admits the pandemic has got her worried about her family: she has a grandmother at a high-risk age and a sister who has autism. ‘It has been shown that people with special needs get affected more by Covid, we don’t know why, but this seems to be the case. Like everybody, I am very anxious for my family’s safety. The good thing is that it forces us to call them more, to speak more. As a result, we have spent summer in much closer contact than we usually do," she outlined.

Vodianova revealed that she had to cancel a lot of events and fundraising for her Naked Heart Foundation which she started in 2004. ‘We managed to switch very quickly, and we were very reactive, we did a few online dinners that worked really well, and people were very generous in supporting us. Also, on the programming side, we managed to bring every single child under care to online schooling as well," she explained. "That, actually, had a fantastic effect. It was shaky in the beginning because a lot of parents are not used to working with their children. But we all got used to doing this online method of work.’

Speaking about the impact Covid-19 has had on charities, she says today is harder than ever to fundraise. ‘Everybody is cutting budgets and costs. It is affecting us. We are a very small organization. We can be more flexible and more resilient during this time," Vodianova added. "But I am very fearful for so many vital organizations that are either smaller than us, or that are much larger than us and have bigger expenses, larger employee forces. They will be suffering.’

She believes social media and tech have a big role to play in ‘bringing people on board’. ‘We don’t want just big donations, we would do so much better if a lot of people gave us tiny donations. I feel this is how social media and tech needs to change in order to lift up organizations like mine’ she added.

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