They came from all over Russia’s 83 regions, and the finalists in regional competitions for the motherland’s most beautiful young ladies gathered in Moscow to compete for the title of Мисс Россия (Miss Russia) 2013. A panel of 7 jurists judged the contest.
On 13 February the ladies took a tour of Moscow, for several of them it was their first introduction to the Russian capital city.
On 23 February, the day Russians honour those who have served in the military, the girls visited and performed at a military base, the Western Military District in Nakhabino. There they learned some basic hand to hand combat skills and introduction to light firearms–hopefully skills unnecessary for competition in a beauty pageant.
Some skills are vitally important part in any pageant and of course there were lessons on how to dance, proper exercise and cosmetic techniques.
Russia is the largest geographical country on earth and there are many ethnic groups found across Russia. While Russian is the official national languages, there are another 27 languages given official status and yet another 100 minority languages represented. Each girl wore costumes representing her region of Russia and performed routines native to her culture.
You will see the new Miss Russia 2013 at the 1:24 to 1:45 mark on this video of the formal dress competition.
Miss Russia 2013 has been crowned! The new Miss Russia is 18-year-old Elmira Abdrazakova, a student at the Siberian Railway University where she studies transport and communications.
(photo: press pool coverage/www.missrussia.ru)
Reflecting the shifting demographics in the country the new Miss Russia is from a cross-ethnic family, her mother is Russian and her father is Tatar from Mezhdurechensk. Her home town (Междуреченск) is a small city of about 100,000 population in the Kemerovo Oblast, a Siberian coal mining region near the Tom River.
Upon returning home the new Miss Russia along with officials at vkontakte (like Facebook in Russia) had to close her “vk” online account as comments to her pages were over two million in the days immediately after the pageant. Unfortunately many of the comments were nationalistic and racist in nature due to her Tatar ethnicity.
(photo: press pool Miss Russia 2013/www.missrussia.ru)
The prizes for first place include a full University scholarship, $1oo,000 in US dollars from Russian Standard Bank, modeling contracts along with a host of paid advertising endorsement opportunities, a new car and the right to represent Russia in the Miss Universe and Miss World international pageants.
(photo: EPA/ИТАР-ТАСС)
The first runner-up for Miss Russia 2013 was Anastasia Yazykov from Yaroslavl and the second runner-up was Irina Tumanov from the Republic of Kalmykia. Jurists for the pageant included Regina von Flemming, CEO of the publishing house Axel Springer Russia, singer and composer Dmitry Malikov, fashion designer Valentin Yudashkin, restaurateur Anastasia Myskina.
For a list and photo of every contestant in this year’s pageant click here. Any Russian girl can compete.
The competition requirements include:
- Citizen of the Russian Federation
- From 17.5 to 23 years of age
- Height of at least 176 cm
- Possessing model looks
