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		</div><p><span style="color:red;"><span style="font-size:x-large;"><i>From an apartment overlooking smoke-filled factories in Communist Yugoslavia to the international runway, now billionaire wife, a heart beat away from the White House &#8230;<br />
Meet Melania Trump, wife of GOP presidential front runner Donald Trump</i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size:x-small;"><i>Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images</i></span><br />
<b>Donald Trump smiles as wife Melania Trump greets the crowd during a campaign event at the Verizon Center in Manchester, New Hampshire</b></p>
<p>How Melania Trump left her bleak Communist upbringing behind: From a childhood apartment overlooking smoke-filled Yugoslav factories all the way to the White House. Donald Trump&#8217;s third wife Melania traces her roots to Sevnica, Slovenia. Industrial town&#8217;s landscape is dominated by smoke and factory buildings. Then known as Melanija Knavs, she grew up in Communist-run Yugoslavia. Her family lived in an eight-story apartment block in the middle of town. Childhood friends recount how town &#8216;was too small&#8217; for the aspiring model</p>
<p><span style="font-size:x-small;"><i> Photo: Slane Jerko</i></span><br />
<b>Trump&#8217;s fashion and modelling career became a reality after she moved to the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, where she was spotted by chance by photographer Stane Jerko in the street </b><br />
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Overlooked by Communist-era apartment blocks and ever-smoking factory chimneys, the Slovenian home town of the third wife of Donald Trump is a far cry from the luxurious life as Melania Trump a glamorous former model, the wife of the U.S. Republican presidential front-runner and mother of a 10 year old young son.Melania traces her roots back to Slovenia&#8217;s sleepy industrial town of Sevnica.</p>
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<div class="overlay-icon mobile-gallery"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><i>Photo: AP</i></span></div>
<div class="overlay-icon mobile-gallery"><b>Then: Melania Trump, then known as Melanija Knavs, is pictured second from right at a friend&#8217;s birthday party</b></div>
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<div class="overlay-icon mobile-gallery"><i><span style="font-size:x-small;">Photo: Getty Images</span></i></div>
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<div class="imageCaption"><b>Now: Former model Melania poses with her husband and Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump</b></div>
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<div class="mol-para-with-font"><span style="font-size:small;">Sevnica residents remember Trump &#8211; then named Melanija Knavs &#8211; as a tall, skinny, well-behaved girl who was passionate about studying and harboured a dream of having an international fashion career.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font"><span style="font-size:small;">&#8216;I think I can say Sevnica was too small for her,&#8217; recalled Mirjana Jelancic, a childhood friend. &#8216;Even as a child, she dreamed of moving.&#8217;</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font"><span style="font-size:small;">Back then, Slovenia was still part of Communist-run Yugoslavia. Slightly more liberal than other Eastern European dictatorships, Yugoslavia kept open ties with the West and its citizens enjoyed free travel.</span></div>
<div class="mol-para-with-font"><span style="font-size:small;">Melania who lived with her father and mother, in an eight-story building right next to their daughter&#8217;s brightly painted primary school, </span><span style="font-size:small;">started modeling at 16, while in high school</span></div>
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<p><b>A photo showing the industrial landscape of Sevnica, where Melania Trump spent her formative years</b></p>
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<div class="mol-para-with-font"><span style="font-size:small;"> She took jobs in Milan, Paris and other fashion hubs, becoming proficient in English, German, French and Italian in addition to Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian.She changed her name to Melania Knauss and settled in New York in 1996. Two years later, she met her future husband at a party in Manhattan where the newly separated Donald Trump asked the model, 24 years his junior, forShe rebuffed him because he was with a date that night, she has said. But by the next year, they were a couple. Married in January 2005, the Trumps had their son Barron a little over a year later.</span></div>
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<div style="background-color:white;color:black;overflow:hidden;text-align:left;text-decoration:none;"><span style="font-size:x-small;"><i>Photo: AP</i></span><br />
<b>Dominated by factory buildings and apartment blocks, Sevnica was still part of Communist-run Yugoslavia during Mrs Trump&#8217;s childhood</b></div>
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<p><b>Big moment: Melania Trump sat down for her first one-on-one interview since husband Donald announced he was running for president eight months ag</b></p>
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