Maybe it’s just me and I’ve watched too many James Bond films in my life (oh, my god, like that’s possible), but does anyone else automatically bump Eastern European men and women a few points up the hotness scale? The accent, the Otherness of their features and upbringing, the idea of them maybe having done unspeakable things in desperate times — it’s all superhot spy-type shit. Maybe it’s some kind of residual Cold War “forbidden territory” thing, even? Anyways, I mention this by way of introducing Inga Drozdova, the lovely and talented Miss November, 1997, who has the distinction of being Playboy’s only Latvian Playmate of the Month to date.
Photographed by Arny Freytag
Ms. Drozdova was a pop star in Russia before coming to America. Please enjoy this cover of “Fever,” or “лихорадка ремикс,” as it is known in Mother Russia.
Inga Drozdova – Fever (Cover in Russian)
I’d say it is the worst thing I’ve ever heard, but I’ve heard Mia Farrow sing. Next to that, Ms. Drozdova’s arrangement and rendition of what until today was a song I thought could not go wrong is still a goddamned prize-winning operetta.
Conservatives back home may have rebelled against the new, Westernized Russia — the McDonaldsization of their motherland, they call it — but Inga embraces change, even personifies it. When she was a little girl there were no sex symbols in Russia. The only pin-ups were pictures of tractors. “I like the new way. I want to be a singer, an actress, a sexual woman and a businesswoman,” she says. (“From Moscow With Love,” Playboy, November 1997)
Thanks to the end of the Cold War we can finally introduce you to a Playmate whose turn-ons include both Pushkin and The X-Files. Only the bold appeals to Miss November, and that includes bold, handsome men of any nationality. “Men can be sexy, too,” she says.
Hell yeah, X-Files and sexy men! I like this chick.
“I’d like to pursue my science studies more, but there is so little time,” she says. Another subject that requires more study is the sort of man she wants. “Russian men, Australians, Americans — I don’t know who is best. I like them all.” Thus far, red-blooded Americans have responded to her the same way the Russian army did: with wide-eyed appreciation. “I am a noticeable person,” she says.
Inga owes her impeccable command of the English language to her years spent at the Moscow Linguistic University, where she majored in finance and business law. “My grades were nearly perfect. But then, I’m a perfectionist,” she says.
“Since my centerfold was successful in Russia, I wanted to do the American edition,” she says. “I am a Playboy fan.” On a recent visit to California she signed autographs in Hollywood — a wish come true for the former teen beauty queen from Latvia.
The Thought Experiment 