Outrage after Russian national crowned Miss Armenia

The announcement that a Russian singer has been crowned Miss Universe Armenia 2024 at a contest in Moscow has led to outcry online.

The result of the competition was announced last week, with 31-year-old singer Irina Zakharova crowned Miss Universe Armenia 2024. She will represent the country in the global Miss Universe competition scheduled to be held in Mexico in November. 

‘How did that girl earn the right to represent Armenia?’ asked journalist and feminist activist Zara Ghazaryan on Instagram, noting that if there was nothing to justify this decision, it could be concluded that ‘they simply used the name of Armenia to participate in the competition’. 

Ghazaryan also said she believed a rare opportunity was taken from Armenian women.

The former director of the Miss Universe Armenia contest, Gohar Harutyunyan, told Russian state news agency Sputnik Armenia that since Thailand’s JKN bought the rights to organise the pageant two years ago, the rules for selecting participants had eased.

‘At that time, there were strict laws that I followed. Even those from the diaspora did not have the right to participate in the national contest “Miss Universe Armenia” if they did not live in Armenia. They had to have an Armenian passport, they had to be under 28 years old, unmarried’, Harutyunyan said. 

Harutyunyan said anyone could now participate, regardless of their age, marriage status, or whether they had children. In addition, the national director of the competition ‘can also be anyone who can pay the most money to participate’.

After the Miss Armenia pageant was suspended in 2022 due to a lack of sponsorship, this change in the statues allowed Yulia Pavlikova, a Russian national originally from Crimea, to acquire the rights to hold the competition. Palikova also holds the rights to the Miss Universe Estonia competition. 

‘After my debut at the Miss Universe contest, the organisers saw in me not only a model, but also a successful leader with extensive experience and potential’, Pavlikova told KP-Crimea. ‘After negotiations, we decided to start with [acquiring the rights to the competitions in] Armenia and Estonia, since I have friends and partners there for productive cooperation’. 

In her statement to Sputnik Armenia, Harutyunyan also raised concerns about the competition being held in Russia, noting that the only participants were Russians or Armenians living in Russia.

‘I don’t know how she [Irinia Zakharova] will represent our country, what problems she will raise because our girls have raised many problems in the past, talked about Artsakh, women’s rights. Of course, we did not take a high place, but our voice was heard there,’ said Harutyunyan, suggesting that in such a situation it would be better if Armenia did not participate in the competition at all.

Previous Armenian Miss World and Miss Universe contestants also raised concerns about the results, telling news.am that they were not even aware of the competition in Moscow.

Dayana Davtyan, the winner of  Miss Universe Armenia 2019, said she learned on social media that this year’s winner, Zakharova, and the national director, Palikova, have had close ties since 2022. 

Mirna Bzdigian, who represented Armenia in Miss World 2022, said that they had contacted the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport because they viewed Zakharova’s crowning as Miss Armenia a big problem.

‘This contest is a fantastic platform to talk about what concerns us, be it the problem of Armenia or Artsakh. If we let all this happen to us, that representatives of other countries represent us, we will be lost as a nation, we will lose our identity and our history. This is a catastrophic mistake’.

The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport neither confirmed nor denied being contacted about the issue, instead asking for an official request to be submitted.

Read in Russian on SOVA.News.

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