He is 21 and has already been to more places than most people will ever go. He is one of the most popular people in Bulgaria and has been in the media and on MobilTel advertising billboards across the country for more than a year. Women chase him and stop him on the street to tell him what they would like to do to him.

He is Marian Kurpanov, one of Bulgaria's top male models.

Marian is not as huge as on the MobilTel ads. "I lost some weight, and I feel much better now," he said. He looks better than ever - tall, muscled, and sun-tanned. He has started smoking again, which he's not happy about, but he swears he'll quit on Monday. Not that he's a health freak, but it interferes with his physical activities. "I try to exercise every day if possible," he said.

His body is what attracted a model agency scout four years ago. Marian was only 17 at the time and already a fitness instructor at the Maria Louisa fitness complex. "I was very heavily into fitness then, and I was very big," he said. It was there that Rozalia Tinkova, a scout for the Underground modelling agency, discovered him.

"It took me four months to decide whether I wanted to be a model. When I finally decided to go for it and went to Rozalia, I was so huge that she got scared - none of the clothes fit me! I had to lose some weight, and it was very difficult, because I was all muscle," said Marian.

Now Underground has been taken over by X-Ground. Tinkova is the agency's owner and president, and Marian is one of the agency's top models. He won the 1999 Manhunt Bulgaria competition, the local branch of the international male pageant organized by Exclusive Resources Marketing Ltd. At the end of May, he went on to the 1999 Manhunt International pageant final, in the Philippine capital Manila. It was the first time that a Bulgarian had participated in the event, which gathered representatives from 43 countries. Marian ranked sixth.

"The people there liked me so much they wanted me to stay and work as a model and even to host a show," Marian says. "But I was too young and thought I should come back to finish my education, not realizing that I could have finished it at other places as well." He completed his studies in English language, chemistry and biology at high school, where he was majoring in biology. "I didn't have a graduation ball, as I was travelling a lot for my modelling job at the time. But I am not sorry about that as I was having a great time," he said.

Immediately after the Manhunt competition he was invited to participate in two other pageants. He became one of the finalists in the Mr. Intercontinental 1999 pageant in Germany. His participation in the Grasim Mr. International 1999, India's international male pageant, was not that successful, as he got there after it started, and became ill before the final.

From the pageant in Germany he won more than just a title. "One of the bosses of the pageant liked me and asked me to work for her agency, CAWI Models," he says. He shot a series of ads for pyjamas in Munich and at a company dinner he met German super model Nadia Auermann. Through CAWI he made an advertising campaign for Look Voyages, a French tourism company. "It was seven days of bliss and beauty in the Dominican Republic," said Marin.

His career has not always been rosy. He has already seen the dark side of the fashion world. At the beginning of his career he modelled for the catalogue of a very famous Turkish clothing company, which he claims never paid him for the job.

In 1999 he was sent by CAWI to Paris, where La Costa and Francesco Smalto Paris, world-famous names in fashion, booked him. The job was going to include work with Russian tennis player and sex symbol Anna Kournikova. "These jobs would have catapulted me into the front lines of modelling," said Marian. "But then I was told that I didn't have a work visa, so I couldn't work in France.

Visas have been one of Marian's biggest problems. He said he has only worked in Europe with business visas, which allow stays of 90 days. Between each of these he had to stay in Bulgaria for two months, which was a problem for the CAWI agency.

He had no problem getting visas for Germany. "I had legal work contracts, but the German embassy does not issue work visas. Luckily, I had a German friend who worked in the German Embassy and got me business visas in 12 hours," he said. He never had time to wait in the huge queues in front of the embassy, because most job offers came at such short notice.

"My old passport was as colourful as a children's book - that's how many visas were stamped in it," he says. He has had many problems due to visas, including being arrested once at Munich airport, because his visa had expired a few days earlier.

For this reason he was very careful with his latest stay in Italy. "For three months I worked all the time, and my visa expired a few hours after I left," said Marian. He shot ads for Collezione Uomo - extremely luxurious and expensive shoes and clothes and for Sixer (neoprene clothing) at Portofino, Italy's most expensive and luxurious beach resort. He also worked in fashion shows for Fila (athletic shoes) and for La Perla (underwear), which he is very proud of.

During that time he also shot two covers for FORMA, a Polish magazine for men's health. He has also modelled Japanese-inspired clothing for Joy, a European teenage magazine. He recently finished a 2002 calendar for Cosmopolitan in Germany.

Marian has had success at home as well as abroad. He has been on the covers of a number of Bulgarian magazines including Eva, For The Woman, and Style Of Life. He has participated in almost all the major Bulgarian fashion events of the last four years. During the nine-month contract he signed with MobilTel in August 2000 he could not leave Bulgaria and could only participate in fashion shows.

In spite of his popularity and great looks, Marian is still a normal person. He goes with his friends to the cinema and to the seaside. He is an extreme sport fanatic and loves motor bikes (he has 140hp Ninja motorcycle), wakeboarding, and monoskiing.

He dreams of becoming a dentist like his father because dentists make a lot of money. One day he plans to study dentistry, but will study abroad, because he does not thing very highly of Bulgarian education. For now he will continue with the good job that he already has. He has had a proposal to host a show on the Italian TV channel RAI UNO, but he wants to perfect his Italian first. He is more interested in working in Germany, but needs to find a sponsor for that. His modelling dream is to work in New York City. "I will fit there best with my height and size. And I will get there some day - a long as I'm healthy," he said.

"It is not true that when God gives beauty he takes away brains; to some he gives both, if they are lucky," said Marian. He is one of the luckiest, he is single and he thinks that Bulgarian women are the most beautiful in the world.