St. Petersburg Model Crowned Miss Russia

An 18-year-old model from St. Petersburg has won this year's Miss Russia title by humming a song from composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

Sophia Rudyeva was chosen from 50 contestants by a jury in Moscow's Manezh Central Exhibition Hall on Sunday.

The winner seemingly impressed the jury not just by her long, dark hair and her near-perfect vital statistics of 88-60-89 but also by her ability to improvise music.

In a so-called intellectual contest, pop singer and juror Dmitry Malikov asked if she could name her favorite composer and render some of his music. Rudyeva promptly mentioned Rimsky-Korsakov and hummed "The Flight of the Bumblebee," an interlude from the composer's "The Tale of Tsar Sultan" opera, written in 1899-1900, RIA-Novosti reported.

Rudyeva made headlines already last week when she beat her native peers, Miss St. Petersburg and Miss Leningrad Region, at a casting for the show in Moscow.

Her entry was helped by a change of the contest's regulations, which formerly stipulated that only winners of regional contests could participate, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.

This year, anybody could sign up for a casting by filling out an application form on the web site Miss-Russia.ru.

Rudyeva took a prize of $100,000, which she said she would largely give to charity, and a chance to represent Russia at the next Miss Universe and Miss World contests.

The winner of the last Miss Russia contest, in December 2007, Ksenia Sukhinova, won the Miss World contest held in December 2008 in South Africa.

Sukhinova and the current Miss Universe, Dayana Mendoza from Venezuela, both appeared at Sunday's contest, RIA-Novosti reported.

Miss Russia was not the country's only beauty pageant to coincide with International Women's Day, which was celebrated Sunday.

Rosatom, the country's atomic industry conglomerate, announced on its web site Friday that Yekaterina Bulgakova, a 25-year-old legal adviser at a nuclear research facility in the Ulyanov region, had won the annual Miss Atom contest for the most beautiful nuclear industry worker.

A women's prison in Selo Gornoye, a town about 160 kilometers from Vladivostok, held a Lady Spring 2009 beauty contest on Thursday.

Miss Atom 2009: Russia's Nuclear Bombshells

Female employees from Russia's nuclear energy industry are competing for the Miss Atom 2009 title this month. The event's sponsors hope the beauty pageant will help dispel the industry's negative image.

Imagine, if you will, a bikini clad beauty queen strutting out of lake, with giant cooling towers belonging to a nuclear power facility dominating the background. Odd perhaps? Not, apparently, in Russia. There, women working in the country's nuclear industry compete for the annual title of Miss Atom.

The beauty pageant, now in its sixth year, is generously financed and well established. There are no anti-nuclear protestors who show up to sling rotten tomatoes at the contestants. Instead, it seems that this bold strategy of fusing atomic energy and Russian bombshells is just another part of life -- or at least a marvelous ploy.

"We want to show the general public that the nuclear industry is an industry like any other," Ilya Platonov, who heads up Nuclear.Ru which runs the event, told ABC News. "Ordinary people work in it, including young, attractive women."

Platonov also admits that the pageant is also an image campaign aimed at dispelling the image of a dangerous and threatening nuclear power industry.

The range of contestants for "Miss Atom 2009" is vast. Many look quite ordinary, lacking the perfect features often associated with beauty contests. Several, though, are astonishingly beautiful. In profile photos, some sling themselves across cars and desks or strike sexy poses in front of machines and oceanscape backgrounds while others wear silly hats or simply sit at office desks.

In personal statements, the ladies divulge passions for activities such as dancing, growing cactuses, travel, and sports. Some, like Julia Leonova of Siberia, add a bit more flare: "I can be a tiger, who spreads fear with a flash of my teeth, or an eagle who flies free through the sky…I can play a hundred different roles -- but choose only those I like," she writes.

Svetlana, an engineering student who goes to modeling school and won last year's "Miss Elegance" title, seems to embody winning characteristics: Her interests included fitness, hairdos and world peace. "I wish the world wasn't full of so many negative things, but rather with peace, friends and love," she writes.

In this competition, a good dose of patriotic love for the Fatherland never hurts either. One contestant sent in a photo of herself enthusiastically waving a Russian flag. Another contestant, 25-year-old Kristina Pogosjan, stated, "I don't need to go to modeling school. After all, I work for 'Atomtrudresurcy.'"

Pageant sponsors include the Atomenergoprom corporation, which was founded two years ago and has close ties with Rosatom, an agency that controls both the civilian and military branches of the industry -- and thus practically all Russia's nuclear material.

Rosatom recently announced plans to build 40 new nuclear reactors at a cost of $60 billion. With these plans, Russia will raise the share of atomic energy in its mix from 17 percent to 25 percent. The country already has 31 active reactors. The future of atomic energy in Russia seems secure.

Anastasia Queen Beauty Contest Announced: 15,000 Gorgeous Girls - Choose the One!

BANGOR, Maine, October 22, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ - Anastasia International, the Bangor Maine based leading introduction agency specialized in Russian and Ukrainian women seeking contact with foreign men, launched a competition today to select the Anastasia Queen 2008 from thousands of Russian and Ukrainian women registered on their introduction web site, http://www.anastasia-international.com/

Russian and Ukrainian women are renowned for their outstanding beauty and feminine allure. Anastasia staff had a hard job selecting 100 registered women from the profiles, photographs and videos of more than 15,000 registered on the site. Now they are turning the selection process over to the registered members of Anastasia International. Registration is free. Just visit the site and register.

Voting is simple. Browse the short list of competitors, click on your favorite and vote. A unique aspect of the competition is the interactive element that allows all the registered members of the site not only to vote but to e-mail, telephone and video-chat with the contestants in Russia and the Ukraine.

Round One of the three-stage competition lasts two weeks with voting from October 20th until November 9nd.

The 15 girls with the most votes will go on to Round 2, the Bikini round, where they will be whittled down to seven finalists by site members based on appreciation of their considerable appeal in a bikini.

The seven finalists will yield just one winner, the Anastasia Queen 2008 based on members voting for their favorite as she portrays herself in a video talent contest.

Visit http://www.anastasiaqueen.com to register and vote now.

ABOUT ANASTASIA INTERNATIONAL

Founded in 1993 in the United States, Anastasia International is the leading company for introduction and romance tours for Russia and the CIS. Its primary goal is to create a comfortable online venue that makes it easier for couples to find each other and communicate.

To learn more about Anastasia International, please visit their informative web site: http://www.anastasia-international.com/anastasia-difference.html

Web: http://www.anastasia-international.com

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