Posted on 05/30/2002 12:32:33 PM PDT by mondonico
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians reveled Thursday in the news that a sharpshooting St. Petersburg cop was crowned Miss Universe (news - web sites), saying it was about time the world took notice of the fabulous women who grew up behind the Iron Curtain.
Oxana Fedorova, a 24-year-old senior police lieutenant who grew up in the provincial town of Pskov won the diamond-studded tiara Wednesday at the pageant in Puerto Rico, out-dazzling a field of 74 other hopefuls.
"It means they have officially recognized what is absolutely obvious and we already knew: that Russia has beautiful women," said Lena Myasnikova, editor of the Russian edition of racy style bible Cosmopolitan.
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was "not surprised."
"Russians can win in all kinds of competitions, starting with mathematics and Olympics, with young boys and girls, and all the way to beauty contests," the Nobel peace prize laureate said during a stop in London for a conference.
Fedorova is no mere beauty, but a pistol-packing graduate student at St. Petersburg's Interior Ministry Academy, with the sort of background that would make James Bond sweat.
HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT, DOCTORAL THESIS
She was probably the only contestant with a police badge in hand-to-hand combat, and the only one defending a doctoral thesis on "civil law and the regulation of the activities of private security forces in the Russian Federation."
Russian television alternated footage of her as she was crowned wearing a silver gown in San Juan, with shots of her looking fashion-model elegant in a standard-issue olive drab police uniform: black necktie, white shirt, mid-thigh skirt, dark tights and knee-high black leather boots.
In one shot, the camera pans from her squinting eye, down the length of her uniformed arm to a manicured hand that squeezes off a 9 mm pistol round. Bang!
Next, she is shown doing aerobics in a white spandex bikini.
"That a Russian woman is not just beautiful, but also smart and energetic, this is typical," said Myasnikova.
"Seventy years of socialism made Russian women fighters. They had to fight for everything: to get a nice blouse, to look pretty without any makeup, to try and make your apartment cozy when everything is leaking and falling apart, to feed your family when there was nothing for sale in the shops."
Fedorova has won a six figure cash prize, use of a New York apartment and a contract for speaking engagements worldwide.
But at the St. Petersburg academy, officials expected her to continue her law enforcement career, in a country where police can make less than $100 a month. She is due for a promotion to captain in August, presumably another Miss Universe first.
"I think this will improve the quality of our police force," Maj. Gen. Khillar Loit, deputy director of the academy, told Reuters. "Now the world knows that we, the police, know not only how to work, but also how to win beauty contests."
Was I the only one who thought she was winking at me?
It's my understanding that they have more liberty with their gun laws than we do, with no sign of any change on the horizon.
Lotta hip though.
I wouldn't care if she couldn't spell her name.
Now where did I put that Russian mail-order bride catalog?
DA!
Gunslinging Superwoman Beauty...what a combo.
"Is next, eeeeeveningvear...very nice!"
More than you might think. Gun control has been loosening up in Russia, and even in Soviet Russia was not as strict as say New York City or Washington DC. My brother-in-law's father-in-law lives in a former Soviet country and has several privately owned firearms since Soviet times. No handguns though, just hunting (aka "Sniper") rifles and shotguns. BiL's wife is a deadly shot too, even with handguns (single action cowboy type) which she never shot until she came to Texas! She can also field strip and reassemble an AK while blindfolded, and is almost (but not quite) as decorative (and probably as fiesty) as Ms.Fedorova.
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