Foreign Exchange: Petter Hegre's Luba

He fell for the chick in Kiev

orwegian photographer Petter Hegre, of the nude- art site hegre-art.com, shoots a lot of Ukrainians. "No doubt, Ukraine has the most beauti­ful girls in the world by far," he says. "They have a special gene there." No fewer than 48 of the models on his site hail from the erstwhile breadbasket of the Soviet Union, but Luba Shumeyko is his obvious favorite. After all, she's his wife. Hegre discovered Luba and her twin sister, Nadya, on a modeling-agency website. "I printed a photo of them," he recalls, "and I ran to my assistant, pointed to Luba and said, 'I'm going to marry that girl.'" We didn't ask him to rate her spousal skills (the borscht, we assume, is top-notch), but we did ask why she's such a special model. "She's very elegant in an easygoing way," he says. "She's tall and thin, with those long, skinny arms." Pause, then a chuckle. "But still she's got a perky ass and nice, full breasts!" Portrait of the artist as a very happy man.