Nuclear Beauties Wanted for Russian Competition

MOSCOW, Feb. 17, 2009 — -- Ask any little girl in Russia what she wants to be when she grows up and she'll probably say an actress or a singer, maybe even a teacher. But it's highly unlikely that nuclear physicist will be anywhere near the top of the list.

Russia's nuclear industry has been trying to change all that in recent years, rolling out the annual Miss Atom Beauty Contest. The competition is open only to women who work in the nuclear world and, as the Web site describes, "Miss Atom is the first and only industry-wide, Web-based project for nuclear belles."

The goal of the competition? To show that smart women working with hazardous materials look pretty good when they're not wearing chemical protection suits.

General director Ilya Platonov of the company Nuclear.Ru, which has run the competition since 2004, said, "We wanted to show the general public that the nuclear industry is an industry like any other, and that ordinary people work in it, including young attractive women."

In short, ladies, atomic energy can be hot.

More than 160 women have entered this year's beauty contest and there is an eclectic range of impressive contenders. Yelena Viskrovkina, a 26-year-old electric engineer from northern Russia, said her life's dream is to achieve "the two most important things for a woman -- to be a successful businesswoman and a happy mother and wife." Darya Klebnikova, a 27-year-old single mother, said she enjoys shooting pool and writing poetry in her spare time.

Among the top prizes this year: week-long trips to Croatia, Cuba and Morocco, as well as digital cameras, diamonds and cosmetics. The winner of Miss Atom 2008, Yulia Nagaeva, went on an all-expenses paid, luxury tour of Italy. Nagaeva, who develops new markets for nuclear fuel, said she loved the experience of competing.

"You have the opportunity to meet so many new people: professional fashion designers, professional hairdressers and the organizers themselves put in a great deal of effort to make the contest interesting and attractive," she said.