Former child beauty queen Alexandra Tikhomirova is facing a stint in Bangkok’s ‘squalid’ and overcrowded IDC immigration prison after reportedly overstaying her visa
A model is to set to be locked up in an infamous Thai prison after she allegedly overstayed her visa.
Former child beauty queen Alexandra Tikhomirova, who was crowned Little Miss Russia in 2013, is being held in a cell in the popular holiday hotspot of Pattaya. The 23-year-old is currently being held in harsh conditions without food or water “alongside robbers and rapists”, according to Russian news media, and is set to be transferred to the notorious IDC prison, an overcrowded detention centre in Bangkok.
Ms Tikhomirova – who was a well-known child model in Russia – is alleged to have overstayed her visa by ten days. It is claimed she had been previously thrown out of Thailand and deported to Russia after running into issues on a previous visit.
She then went to Dubai for several months, before returning to Thailand. Despite her fame, the woman, from the town of Petrozavodsk in northwest Russia, reportedly has no money for a ticket home after a fall-out with her parents.
Russian news outlets claim they disapproved of her rumoured work as an escort. But this has been denied by other members of the family, as one relative, named Maria, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper: “I am in great shock. Why did everyone assume that she is an escort? This is nonsense, it is impossible.
“She communicates with her parents, they have a good family. There did the information come from that they do not care about her?”
Alexandra Tikhomirova was also involved in competitive sport as a youth, and took part in regional and national gymnastics competitions. In one beauty contest at the age of 12, she said: “The most important thing in life is self-development and self-knowledge. I would really like to inspire other people to great achievements.”
Conditions at the Bangkok Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) have been described as “squalid” by human rights groups and former inmates. Children, women and the elderly are among those held in overcrowded cells, with some locked away for years until they are deported. Designed for around 500 detainees, it is known to regularly hold well over double that figure.
