A lieutenant from the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy was crowned “Army Queen 2005” in the “Beauty in Epaulets” contest held in a Moscow theater Tuesday, the Itar-Tass news agency reported.
Ksenia Agarkova
Moscow news:
The “queen,” Ksenia Agarkova, was selected from 21 female finalists, all serving in branches of the armed forces ranging from infantry and naval units to the country’s space forces.
Ksenia graduated from the St. Petersburg Shipbuilding Institute and for the past two years has been serving in the Navy as an engineer at a laboratory of the fleet’s firing range. She has been awarded a military medal for participating in 18 missile test-launches.
From wikipedia:
In June 2005, nineteen female soldiers and sailors participated in "Miss Russian Army" (entitled "Beauties in Epaulets"), which was broadcast on live television. The event, held at Moscow's Russian Army Theatre, included the soldiers walking down the catwalk in uniform and singing songs while accompanied by guitarists (a memorable lyric included the phrases, "Since we're soldiers, our first concern is automatic weapons; boys come second"). A children's choir sang a song called "Our Army Is the Strongest". Other events, shown on film, saw the contestants competing in drills, crawling in combat uniform, entering tanks, and running with automatic weapons. (Defense officials prohibited the wearing of bikinis.) Other film clips showed women in the ranks of the earlier Red Army and their role in Soviet-era wars. The jury ultimately gave the title to Lieutenant Ksenya Agarkova, an engineer with Russia's Northern Fleet. Her image will be reproduced on a poster.
Officials were quite open about the hoped-for propaganda and recruiting value of the contest. Colonel Gennady Dzyuba, of the Defense Ministry, said, "Those who have served, especially in hot spots, know the importance of women — they calm the team down. We restrain ourselves in front of them, desist from coarseness."
