A young Moldovan woman has been living the high-life in London after reportedly paying almost $60,000 for Russian craftsmen to deck her car with Swarovski crystals.
Daria Radionova, 21, posted photos of her glittering Mercedes CLS350 — worth about $80,000 even before the tuning job — to her Instagram account last week.
One of the pictures, depicting Radionova lounging on the car's hood with a friend, carried the hashtag "I'm not an #arab guy," an apparent reference to Arab playboys in the British capital with a fondness for gaudy luxury.
The business student said she paid $57,000 for the craftsmen to plaster 1 million crystals onto the Mercedes, the Moldovan edition of the Komsomolskaya Pravda tabloid reported Tuesday.
The work was carried out by a team of Russian experts who toiled 12 hours a day for two months, British tabloid The Daily Mail reported.
Radionova now carries a pack of spare crystals in the car for emergency repair.
In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, Radionova said she came from a businessman family in Chisinau, the capital of the impoverished republic of Moldova on the Romanian border.
Radionova — who runs a python and crocodile jacket-making business parallel to her studies — said she eventually plans to sell the vehicle and donate the money to charity.
The proceedings from the "crystal car" may go toward a shelter for stray pets in Chisinau, the charity-conscious student said, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
"Haters don't hate! I just want to make this world better and nicer," she said on her Instagram account late Tuesday.
