Nadezhda Trokhan-Abela is one of those whom Tver can be proud of. At the age of 17, a girl from Tver began a successful modeling career in London, and now she is a businesswoman and mother of two boys. But the model did not forget about her hometown and, having achieved success, began to help Tver children. In a candid interview with a TIA correspondent, Nadezhda spoke about her charitable foundation, her ties with Russia and her family.

Nadezhda Trokhan was born in Peno, where her father was assigned after graduating from the Tver State Medical Academy. Already in Tver, Nadya went to a garden and then graduated from Tver Gymnasium No. 6 with advanced study of foreign languages. At the age of 16 the future model entered the Moscow State Pedagogical University and after the first course she came to London for summer courses in English and management. There she was noticed by a scout of a modeling agency, and soon Nadezhda signed her first contract. The girl’s life changed abruptly: her studies in Moscow had to be abandoned, and Nadezhda was waiting for her first working trip to Tokyo.

For more than seven years, Nadezhda Abela helped world foundations to fight cancer, hunger and disease in Africa, and several English foundations. However, after the birth of her second son, she felt it was time to support children from Russia. She decided to start with Tver, the city that raised her.

Since 2015, the Nadezhda Charitable Foundation has been working in two main areas: medical care for children suffering from various diseases and financial support for gifted children. You can learn more about the Foundation’s activities at

Our Foundation is still quite young – a little over a year old, but during this time we have been able to achieve our goals and help both children directly and medical and educational institutions that work with children,” Nadezhda told a TIA correspondent. – The total amount for which the Foundation provided assistance during the first year of its activity amounted to almost 3 million rubles. A great achievement for us was the opportunity to help boarding school No. 2 on Ordzhonikidze Street: we purchased medical equipment worth over one million rubles for a class of children with cerebral palsy, and they started studying on September 1.

The Foundation’s staff is quite small: the director is Yulia Trokhan, the head of the Foundation’s projects is Alesya Babaeva, and the accountant is Elena Zakharova. But Nadezhda has an excellent Board of Trustees and many friends, some of whom the founder of the Foundation has been friends with since childhood. For example, with Ekaterina Kutaeva Nadezhda sat at the same desk for ten years, and with supermodel Anastasia Khozisova she worked together at fashion shows. Now they both take part in all the Foundation’s events.

I try to keep in touch with my classmates, and some of them help me with the Foundation, which is very pleasant! For example, theater and film actor Alexei Markov – also a graduate of gymnasium No. 6, together with him we went to the theater club – helped us with the charity auction, and now we are preparing a small video about charity together.

According to Nadezhda, in the West, charity is part of everyday life. In Russia, people are not yet used to the idea.

Since he was three years old, my eldest son has been involved in various projects organized by his kindergarten that are related to charity. As adults, families, business people and politicians choose charitable foundations whose goals and objectives they are passionate about and then participate in the activities of these foundations throughout their lives.

Nadezhda comes to her homeland several times a year, combining the pleasant with the useful: this way she can see her relatives and at the same time run the Foundation’s business. According to Nadezhda, Tver has changed a lot in recent years, and for the better: the infrastructure and everyday life have improved. Finally, the restoration of the Wayback Palace has been completed, and the girl hopes to visit it soon.

During her modeling career, Nadezhda managed to participate in both shows and shoots for fashion magazines and advertisements. One of her favorite shows Nadezhda calls Gucci in Milan – then the creative director was Tom Ford, it was his last season. Interesting were the shows for Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto and Italian Antonio Marras (where, by the way, the model met Nastya Khozisova, who later became a trustee of the Foundation). And now Nadezhda continues to shoot for magazines – Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar – and advertisements for famous brands: from Avon to Victoria Beckham.

After the birth of my two sons, my personal choice is to work less in the fashion industry: now it is no longer possible to shoot in five different cities in one week, as it used to be. Now the main thing in my life is my family, my family business and my charitable foundation.