The very though of women com­pet­ing for the title of the most beau­ti­ful was a fairly adver­sar­ial con­cept for the Soviet ide­ol­ogy. A woman, first and fore­most, was a worker, an achiever, a mother and a wife, and nobody would con­sider judg­ing one on the phys­i­cal attrac­tive­ness — let alone allow women spend the valu­able time and money on point­less fash­ion, cos­met­ics and hair styling.

A uni­form parade was the clos­est thing to a beauty pageant in the USSR. It was an hon­our to par­tic­i­pate in one.

That’s why, when across the globe beauty con­tests became pop­u­lar and wide­spread after the Sec­ond World War, the USSR had its ban on such events. Until 1989, when the very first beauty con­test took place in Moscow — try­ing to find the pret­ti­est of them all.

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