"People see I'm healthy, beautiful, cheerful. They see that I'm always smiling, and all their stereotypes just completely fall apart," said Svetlana Izambayeva, who will be crowned Russia's first Miss Positive on Thursday. After learning in 2002 she was HIV-positive, the hairstylist, now 24, said she "wanted to die. The doctors said I'd live for eight years. But they behaved like I was already a corpse." In Russia, where HIV/AIDS is widely associated with drug use and prostitution, "People cannot understand why I am open about it," Izambayeva said. "The attitude in Russia is that 'normal' people don't get it." But even as Izambayeva works to fight HIV discrimination, stigma continues to exact a heavy toll: Thursday's awards ceremony will be held in private because some of the other contestants fear making their status known publicly.

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