In 1988, one of the first beauty contests in the Soviet Union was held. The event was actively discussed, and in the foreign press it was compared to Gagarin's flight into space.
The end of the 80s of the last century was marked for our country by a series of great changes. People gradually began to learn how it is "there" in the west. Foreign trends began to gain popularity, and now they also touched on show business.
The Moscow Beauty contest has become a real sensation both for the residents of our country and for the world community. In the foreign press, this event was compared with the first manned flight into space. This was the second competition. In the spring of the same year, they chose the first Miss USSR.
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Marina Parusnikova, who was the organizer of the first beauty contest in the Soviet Union, recalled:
“At that time, every ordinary person, every woman who was beautiful or considered herself so, got a chance to show herself. The qualifying rounds took place in the administration of the Gorky Park of Culture. The line to the building stretched right up to the metro itself: its length, probably, was not less than two kilometers. The same queues lined up on Red Square, at the Lenin Mausoleum. Moreover, there were not only young pretty girls, but also mothers with children and wives with husbands."
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Future contestants stood in line for several hours. After they got into the building, they had to fill out questionnaires.
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The bust of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, thrown with bags or clothes, looks at the contestant as if with condemnation.
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Of course, there were some curious cases. So, the organizers recalled a girl with the surname Durnev.
The jury was completely satisfied with the contestant, but suddenly they realized: how can a girl with the surname Durneva be the winner of a beauty contest?
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Also, the organizers remembered the first show. The participants did not really understand what was required of them and what they had to do. However, it was difficult for the organizer himself, because they also went through this for the first time. Members of the jury were members of the public. Among them was Leonid Yakubovich, who at that time was still unknown to anyone.
