The World's Deadliest Prison

Locked Up Abroad Gulag Style! Inside The Unbelievably Harsh Conditions Of Russia’s Labor Camps

Going to the bathroom outside when it’s -4 degrees. Only seeing your children two to four times a year. Bathing just once a week. And vying with dozens of other prisoners one hour a week to use one of two phone booths to call home.

This is just a little insight into the harsh reality of life inside Russian’s modern day labor camps, known under Stalin as gulags.

And these are the conditions that two members of the band Pussy Riot will face when they arrive at two of Russia’s most notorious penal facilities.

In August, a judge convicted Maria Alyokhina, 24, and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, of “hooliganism” for performing in a Moscow cathedral.

As the news previously reported, both received a two-year sentence and this week they were put on trains to separate camps in the remote areas of Mordovia and Perm.

Svetlana Bakhmina, a lawyer who spent four years in one such camp after being convicted of embezzlement, reveals the harsh realities of life as
an inmate.

“From the moment you stepped into the train, you were no longer recognized as an equal human being – the system treats you as a second-class person,” she tells the Daily Beast.

“They make you jump out of a prison vehicle into the train’s door. You fly with all your bags over about [a] 3 feet gap while guards with dogs stand on the ground watching you.”

Tolokonnikova will serve her time in the Mordovia colony FGU IK-14 that was once Bakhmina’s home. According to the lawyer, the train journey takes about two days and two nights.

Kept in crowded cages, she says the women are only allowed to use the bathroom twice. The rest of the time they have to improvise.

Bakhmina told BBC News that the facility is like a “tough, Soviet-style camp.” She said: “The inmates were all housed in two big army-style barracks – there were anywhere between 50 and 100 people in each one.

“The barracks were built in the Soviet times – I guess in the 1920s.”

While each barrack is furnished with rows of bunk beds, a nightstand and a stool, the bathroom facilities are dire.

She says: “There is also a toilet but you cannot use it as there is no central sewage system. We used to go outside to the so-called ‘hole’, sometimes when it was -20C [-4 degrees] in the winter.”

Woken at 6 a.m. the women have to exercise outside – even in freezing conditions – before doing their daily chores.

Both Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova are moms of young children but communication with loved ones will be limited according to insiders. Inmates can only see their families two to four times a year during three-day visits.

Meanwhile each unit is only given an hour a week to call home. Bakhmina remembers vying with dozens of women to use one of two phone booths to talk to her young sons.

The picture the lawyer presents is a gloomy one – of being locked up with murderers and facing a constant threat of violence.

She says: “The administration was very strict with us – rumors of beatings circled around the colony, although I didn’t witness any personally.

“More often there were fights between the inmates themselves.”

Perhaps the biggest threat the inmates face is a psychological one.

Bakhmina says: “There was no torture…but anyone disobeying the prison rules would be punished by getting sent to ‘shiza’ [Russian abbreviation for ‘schizophrenia’] – a solitary cell.”

Vladimir Putin Nude Scandals

Vladimir Putin topless protest: Femen activist speaks out

Vladimir Putin may have "liked" the topless feminist protester who confronted him with an obscene slogan daubed on her back – but she is less than impressed with his response. 

 Putin looks a naked member of Femen in the... eye?

Alexandra Shevchenko, who stripped to the waist in front of the Russian president as he toured a trade fair in Hanover alongside German chancellor Angela Merkel, told The Daily Telegraph that he was "really stupid".

Mr Putin claimed to have been entertained by the demonstration, telling a press conference afterwards: "As for the protest, I liked it."

Speaking in Berlin today, Ms Shevchenko, 24, said: "Putin is a bastard. If you're a normal person you have to be against him. The most important [criticism] for us is human rights, the rights of women, this situation with Pussy Riot. Of course we don't want to say this is all he's done – he has committed a lot of other crimes.

"I think his answer was really stupid. It was really in this Russian, post-USSR style. The president of a European country would never say something like – I like her, in such a sexual way. He does it because he's a stupid man."

Ms Shevchenko was one of a group of five female protesters who confronted the two world leaders on Monday morning. She had a slogan in Cyrillic on her back, reading: "F*** you Putin" – which she chose, she says, "because it's really simple".

The women have been released by the police, while authorities in Germany decide whether they will face charges.

The women are members of Femen, the feminist group who have become famous for semi-naked protests, including burning a Salafist flag in front of the Grand Mosque in Paris.

Ms Shevchenko, who studied business administration, helped found the group in Ukraine in 2006 to campaign against the sex industry. The group has been protesting topless since 2010 - and, she said, the group will soon be establishing itself in the UK.

Describing the moment she rushed towards Mr Putin, Ms Shevchenko said: "There was a lot of his security and a lot of police around him, a lot of journalists. So we have to find some gaps and just jump through them.

"When I was running at him we were looking at each other's eyes. He was very, very surprised and thinking in this moment, thinking he will do something with his security. It is their mistake."

Mr Putin attempted to laugh off the incident later, saying that the organisers of the Hanover event should "say thank you to the Ukrainian girls, they helped you promote the trade fair".

He added: "To be honest, I didn't really hear what they were shouting because the security [guards] were very tough. These huge guys fell on the lasses. That seemed not right to me, they could have been handled more gently."

"Topless protest – I think this is the only effect that can work," Ms Shevchenko said. "This way of protest is being used by women all over the world. In new countries, in Mexico, in the US, in Brazil, France and Germany.

"When a woman's nudity is not controlled by men, when she's not using it to entertain men, or to give them sexual satisfaction or advertise men's products – when she's using her sexuality for her own aims, political aims – that really makes patriarchy irritated. And you can see the result."

That result, according to Ms Shevchenko, has been regular threats of violence against Femen activists. She cited the recent fatwa against the activist in Tunisia who posted a topless image of herself online, and the abduction of a group of activists by secret service agents in Belarus.

Femen claim that three activists who travelled to Minsk, in Belarus, were kidnapped and held naked in a forest overnight. While there, they were threatened with lighters and knives. The Belarus secret service denies the allegations.

Ms Shevchenko has been in Germany since the end of January establishing a local chapter of the movement. She said that it had begun activities in Britain too.

She said that Femen lacked the media profile to attract many new supporters in the UK, while bail conditions imposed by the courts made activism difficult.

"There is a little bit less information about Femen in the UK, less than in Germany, France, it's not so easy for women [in Britain] to understand who we are and start to become Femen. And when we talk to all these activists, activists from the UK, we're really shocked that after all the protests, they have this punishment, that they cannot participate in other protests."

Mr Putin was in Hanover to open the trade fair, where Russia has a pavilion, and hold talks with Mrs Merkel.

After visiting Germany, he travelled to the Netherlands, where he faced protests from gay rights activists, who blew whistles and played loud dance music outside his meeting with the Dutch prime minister.

The activists accuse Russia of discriminating against homosexuals. Russia's parliament has given preliminary approval to a ban on "homosexual propaganda" targeting minors.

Putin: “I Enjoyed Topless Protest in Germany!”

Femen activists have organised yet another half-naked protest at a trade fair in Hannover where the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, is meeting with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. As the leaders of the two countries examined a Volkswagen stand, girls lurking in the sea of journalists stripped to the waist and broke through the cordon and began chanting obscene slogans in English. They also had obscene messages painted on their bodies in English and in Russian. The protest didn’t last long and the girls were quickly overpowered by the security guards and taken away. The guests continued their inspection of the exhibition stands. Later, at a press-conference Vladimir Putin said that he knew of the impending protest by representatives of the Femen group, and liked it, according to Interfax. “In terms of the protest, I enjoyed it. In principle, we knew that they were preparing something like this. Thank you, Ukrainian girls, you’ve helped kick the exhibition off to a great start.” The Russian President also remarked that the protests by the Ukrainian feminists is nothing new and not to be feared. He expressed doubt that such actions may serve political goals. “If someone wants to argue about political issues, it is better to do it clothed, not naked. There’s a time and place for getting undressed” Mr Putin stressed. The Russian President even felt sorry for the girls, who were overpowered by the guards.

He added: “To be honest, I didn’t really hear what they were shouting, because the security guards are very firm. These big guards swooped down onto the girls, I don’t think that’s right, they could have handled them a bit more gently.”

Cat Hired As Security Guard

Russia’s Museum Cats

Winding beneath the magnificent halls of St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, with its Da Vincis, diamonds, Greek statuary, Egyptian parchments, enormous number of paintings, mechanical peacock clock, and other treasures, there is a catacomb of cellars. It was into this windowless nether region—far below the Winter Palace’s expansive view of the waters of the Neva—that Maria Haltunen and I had cautiously descended. As I followed her through a narrow, imperfectly-lit corridor, full of large pipes and jutting wires, Haltunen gasped. “Look!” she said.

In the semi-darkness, a little being had appeared. He perched, a foot-tall shadow, on a water pipe.

“Oh, you are a fat one!” said Haltunen, jangling the chain of her I.D. pass like a talisman as she approached the pointy-eared creature. “How nice you are!”

The cat sat, perfectly still. Then he vanished.

“Some of them like to be around people,” said Haltunen, who has been the personal assistant to the museum’s director for the last eighteen years and, in addition to her regular duties, also serves as the museum’s semi-official Press Secretary to the Cats. She peered behind the pipes to see where the creature had gone, but found only a blanket, tucked against the wall, and a bowl. “Some of them prefer to be by themselves.”

Once a motley crew of frightened strays hiding, half-starving, in the palace’s basement, the Hermitage’s cats are now a well-loved, well-fed part of the museum’s family. Some seventy former street cats live at the Hermitage, where, thanks largely to Haltunen’s efforts, they have their very own underground cat infirmary and three full-time volunteers to care for them.

Underground, in their domain, there were signs of them—tiger-striped cat beds, bright pink and blue plastic bowls, places where the heating system’s pipes had been covered in soft, flowered material so that the cats could nest there. Now and then, a pair of bright eyes glanced out from a shaft; in a fenced-off corner, beneath blue and red water pipes, sprawled a little black kitten with white paws. As we passed, he jumped up, sprightly, and sidled out of the off-limits area.

“Our director is always saying they are the spirit of the place,” said Haltunen. “The museum’s genius loci.”

It wasn’t always this way. Fifteen years ago, Haltunen came upon the cats, sheltering in beleaguered prides in the museum’s heating system. Troubled by the animals’ plight, she and a colleague started feeding them, donning maintenance uniforms and lugging leftovers from the cantina to do the rounds of the extensive basements each day after work. “It was awful, after working all day, to put on ugly clothes, to carry stinky beans through these dark basements,” said the diminutive Haltunen, who, with her large, bright eyes and button nose is not entirely un-catlike, herself. “But if you start, you can’t stop.”

Then, they decided to organize. They took up a collection—“A rouble for a cat”—and used it to buy food. Newspaper articles appeared. People became interested. The museum’s director gave them permission to use some little rooms in the basement to keep ill and elderly cats, and hooked up running water. “You know how it is,” said Haltunen, “You see a problem, and then you have to do something.”

In theory, the cats now form a fanged, clawed army with one goal: to catch and kill mice who might want to chew on the artworks. In practice, “they are fat and lazy,” said Haltunen, with evident pride. (A security guard once took a picture of one looking on, in astonishment, as a rat drank from his bowl of milk.) Still, according to Haltunen, when an exterminator came, they found fewer rat corpses afterwards than usual. She says that the mere presence of the cats, their bodies and smells, serves as a deterrent.

There have been cats in the palace since Peter the Great’s daughter, Empress Elizabeth, issued a decree, in 1745, that the biggest cats, capable of catching mice, be sent immediately from Kazan to the court of her imperial majesty. Catherine the Great is thought to have favored Russian Blues as indoor palace cats; under the last Czar, the royal family’s pet cats, who were left behind in the palace, fared better than the dogs, who were taken along to Yekaterinburg with the family to their deaths. During the three-year siege of Leningrad, all of the animals in the city died—except for the rats, said to have been so numerous as to form a gray, moving mass in the streets. When the blockade was lifted, Haltunen said, as we continued our walk beneath the museum, Russians sent their cats to the city to help fight the vermin.

Stepping into the little cat hospital, a cozy, cluttered space that the oldest and sickest cats call home, Haltunen greeted Irina Popovetz, one of the volunteers who looks after the cats. Then she greeted Kusya (“Oh, this one has no tail!”), Jacqueline (“Look how fat we are!”), Sofiko (“You are very old!), and Assol, a tabby named for an impoverished literary heroine who waited at the seaside for a man sailing a ship with scarlet sails to come for her.

Taking a seat in the warm, pungent room and stroking Sofiko, she explained that, thanks to in part to donations from the German society Pro Animale and the pet-food company Purina, there is now an official Hermitage “cat account”—which always in the black. However, the cats are not just charity cases: last year marked the first official “Catfest,” in which all the entries for a contest for the best cat painting (there were nearly three hundred, mostly submitted by children) were exhibited for a day in the basement. For the second annual Catfest, held this spring, a scavenger hunt for children in the museum led to the museum’s only cat mummy, put on display that day only. Catfest was so popular that there is talk of extending it to two days next year. “We were astonished,” said Haltunen. “Crowds come to our dirty basement! It is really popular.”

The cats themselves, who are no longer afraid of people, have a positive effect on staff morale, she said. “People here become kinder, because they have the possibility to show this kindness,” said Haltunen, as we made our way back outside, where an orange cat was asleep in the sun beneath a classical statue. “It is very good when you have the possibility to show your best qualities.”

While cats are not allowed in the galleries or in the museum director’s wing, the people-loving felines have free rein in the former apartments of the ladies-in-waiting, where staff offices are now located. In the deputy of security’s office, “Little Hooligan,” a kitten abandoned in the countryside, where a security worker saved her from being used to train someone’s dog, was drinking milk under the Xerox machine. Frida, a black cat found in the garbage, posed on top of the bookshelf like a nineteenth-century Parisian lithograph, though—according to the photographic evidence that was immediately produced—she still likes to sleep in plastic bags. Niko, who looks like a mini-tigress, was fast asleep on a desk, with her tongue out (the desk’s putative owner assured us that this was no problem: grabbing hold of the sleeping cat’s long, bushy tail, the woman said that whenever she needed to sign anything, she just dips the tip in ink).

“People from Western countries, they say unfortunately they cannot permit cats in their offices,” said Haltunen, looking around, contentedly. “We are very lucky here.”

The World's Most Magical Cave

Is this the most magical cave in the world? The chambers carved through Kamchatka's glaciers by volcano-fed hot springs
These incredible pictures were taken by photographers on expedition in the eastern Siberian peninsula
The caves have been carved into glacial ice by a hot spring gushing from the regions Mutnovsky volcano
Local guide Denis Budkov says he came across them by chance - and may not be able to find them again
Treasures Of The Dwarfs: This breathtaking picture taken by Russian photographer Natalia Balentsova of a cave carved out of the ice in Kamchatka by a hot spring near the Mutnovsky volcano won the 2012 Russian Wild Nature competition

Subterranean world: Ms Balentsova and her local guide Denis Budkov, also a photographer, came across the magical caves by chance while on expedition near the Mutnovsky volcano, some 45 miles south of the regional capital of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Natural wonder: The cave has been carved out of the glacier by an underground river that is sourced in a hot spring gushing from the Mutnovsky volcano itself
Entrance to the underworld: The expedition members lit flares in the cave to highlight the undulating erosion caused by the warm water as it flows through
With multicoloured lights gently glowing from a translucent ceiling, a stream rippling through rocks beneath and a bright light in the distance, this tunnel looks like a passage to fairytale world.

But this breathtaking photograph was taken in cave carved out of the living rock and ice of this world - albeit on a remote fringe little visited by outsiders.

These incredible pictures show ice caves carved by volcano-fed hot springs through the glaciers of Kamchatka.
They were captured by local guide and photographer Denis Budkov, Natalia Balentsova, a photographer from Chelyabinsk, and others on the peninsula on the eastern edge of Russia's vast Siberian land mass.

The intrepid snappers came across the magical caves by chance while on expedition near the Mutnovsky volcano, some 45 miles south of the regional capital of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

The incredible lights shining purple, blue, green and yellow are no computer trickery - they are the result of sunlight streaming through the glacial ice into the hidden world below.

The cave was carved out of the glacier by an underground river that is sourced in a hot spring gushing from the Mutnovsky volcano itself.

Mr Budkov told the Siberian Times: 'Mutnovsky volcano is the heart of Kamchatka.

'This heart is literally beating and you can feel it while the earth is slightly moving under your feet'.

He added: 'We found the cave by chance in September 2012. It was not far away from a volcanologists' hut.

'I was taking some photographers for a tour and we saw a spring running from under the glacier. We came closer and saw that there was a hole so we went into this extraordinary cave.'

Ms Balentsova spent several hours inside working on photographs to record the incredible subterranean world they found themselves inside.

One her pictures - dubbed Treasures Of The Dwarfs - won the Russian Wild Nature competition last year.

She said: 'Outside, the glacier was very dirty and grey. But inside, everything was different.

'The snow was melting, and the light passed through the thin walls, reflecting surprisingly bright colours.'

The walls and ceiling of the frozen world are made up of layers of compacted snow, with the river softly gurgling through a long chamber illuminated by light glinting through windows made of ice,

'It's hard to find such places without a guide', said Budkov. 'Even me, being an experienced guide, didn't know about this cave as it is off the usual routes I normally take.

'Plus at the moment, it is impossible to get there as we have a metre and a half of snow covering everything.

'I'm not sure if it will even melt during the summer. So maybe the people who want to see the cave will have to wait until next year'.

Satanic Teacher Love Story

Spurned lover turned to Satan, violence

VOLGOGRAD, Russia, - Russian police said a teacher turned to Satanism and a hired thug to attack a former student's fiancee after the former student rejected her.

Police said Lyudmila Osipova, 41, of Volgograd, developed a crush on a man in his 20s while teaching a computer class several years ago and attempted to reconnect with the man after quitting her job in 2009, RIA Novosti reported Friday.

The woman posed online as a model half her age in an attempt to reconnect with the man, but he spurned her advances because he had a girlfriend he planned to marry, the Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.

Investigators said Osipova's failure to win the man's affections led her to take up Satanism and drink blood in an attempt to get the devil to help her obtain a younger body, $32,000, a Jaguar, a Volkswagen, a helicopter and a team of bodyguards.

However, that also failed to yield results, so Osipova attempted to hire an undercover police officer posing as a contractor to attack the object of the man's affections.

"Put her on drugs for a couple of weeks in order to develop an addiction," the woman says in surveillance video of the incident. "Gang-rape her too, and film it for him to see."

Osipova was arrested Wednesday after allegedly handing over $6,500 to the undercover officer. She was charged with instigating kidnapping, gang rape and infliction of grave bodily harm.

She faces as much as 15 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Miss Russian Army

 No bikinis for Miss Russian Military contest 

Army chiefs have slapped a ban on bikini-wearing during the first ever Miss Russian Military beauty contest today.

Nineteen women soldiers are to parade with guns in full military uniform down a catwalk in Moscow, reports local media.

They were then set to strip off for more conventional bikini pictures but military officials have now ruled that they must stay covered up.

Major-general Nikolai Burbyga, senior judge of the Miss Military Beauty Contest, said: "I agree with the decision that female officers should not get undressed. I'd rather keep their bodies a military secret."

The girls were selected from all over Russia, and from different parts of the army including rocket launching units, the air-force and navy.

The winner of the contest will get a crown and be promoted to a higher rank so she can go on tour to promote the work of the Russian armed forces, local media reported.

One finalist, Lieutenant Ekaterina Shumeiko, a member of 106th air-force military landing unit, told judges she had no problem with missing the bikini stage.

She said: "If you only know how pleasant is for a woman to walk down the street in a military uniform. All the men just turn and look at you."

Ivan The Terrible Acid Attack

Bolshoi acid attack: Pavel Dmitrichenko confesses to assault on Sergei Filin

A leading dancer at the Bolshoi Ballet has confessed to ordering an acid-throwing attack on the artistic director of the troupe, exposing a bitter backstage clash at one of the world’s greatest theatres.  

Pavel Dmitrichenko, left, is known to be one of several dancers who had clashed with Mr Filin

Pavel Dmitrichenko, who is known for his powerful performance in the role of Ivan the Terrible, admitted arranging the January 17 assault on Sergei Filin, who was left with severely damaged eyes and chemical burns after a jar of sulphuric acid was tossed in his face.

There was speculation that the soloist arranged the attack in revenge for Mr Filin allegedly denying major roles to Mr Dmitrichenko’s girlfriend, Anzhelina Vorontsova, a 21-year-old ballerina at the Bolshoi Theatre.

The assault stunned Russia’s art world and has dominated newspaper headlines for weeks.

Mr Dmitrichenko, 29, looked dazed and bleary-eyed in video footage released by police in Moscow on Wednesday. “I organised that attack but not to the extent that it occurred,” he said. It was not possible to immediately confirm that the confession was not given under duress.

Mr Filin, 42, has undergone a series of operations on his eyes and face and is currently being treated at a clinic in Germany. He earlier described how he tried to alleviate the agonising pain in the moments after the acid hit him, falling to his knees and pressing snow into his eyes. The lone attacker had approached him as he punched in an entry code at his home in Moscow’s Troitskaya Street.

Police arrested two other men near Moscow on Tuesday: Yury Zarutsky, 35, a recidivist who is said to have carried out the attack at Mr Dmitrichenko’s bidding, and Andrei Lipatov, 31, who allegedly drove the assailant to the scene of the crime.

Mr Zarutsky acquired the acid from an auto-repairs shop in Moscow region and then increased its concentration through evaporation. Mr Lipatov denies any knowledge of the crime, saying he only drove Mr Zarutsky where he asked to go.

The group had monitored Mr Filin’s movements and communicated using mobile phones registered under false names on the night of the attack, police said. Detectives later traced their calls from the area.

Mr Dmitrichenko was arrested after police searched his parents’ apartment, which is in the same complex as the home of Mr Filin.

The shaggy-haired dancer has worked at the Bolshoi since 2002, featuring in the title role in Spartacus and as the Evil Genius in Swan Lake. He was to reprise his leading role in Ivan the Terrible, to music by Serge Prokofiev, in April but will now be replaced by another dancer.

The state-controlled NTV channel said Mr Dmitrichenko had a reputation as a volatile character, and showed archive footage of the dancer demonstrating a tattoo on his right forearm reading “Life is struggle, to struggle means to live”. “That’s my motto,” the soloist explained.

A Moscow police spokesman said: “The motive for the crime was the hostile personal relations [of Mr Filin] with Dmitrichenko, connected to his professional activity.”

There was speculation in Russian media that the attack was linked to disagreements between Miss Vorontsova and Mr Filin, who had allegedly turned down the young ballerina for the role of Odette in Swan Lake.

Miss Vorontosva is a student of Nikolai Tsiskaridze, the premier dancer who has a long-running conflict with the management of the Bolshoi.

Mr Filin, a former dancer who became artistic director of the troupe in 2011, has not commented on the arrests. Asked last month if he knew who carried out the attack, he said: “My heart knows who did it, and in the depths of my soul I have an answer to that question.”

However, he admitted this was only “an idea” and refused to name the person publicly.

The Bolshoi hopes Mr Filin will return to his post in time for a series of summer shows at London’s Royal Opera House to mark the 50th anniversary of the Bolshoi’s first visit to Covent Garden.

Russian Angelina Jolie

 Ethnic Tatar Miss Russia Winner Targeted By Ethnic Slurs On Internet

Officially Russia prides itself on being a diverse, multicultural country.

So it seemed appropriate when 18-year-old Elmira Abdrazakova -- the daughter of a Russian mother and a Tatar father from frigid Kemerovo Oblast -- was crowned Miss Russia 2013 on March 2.

But the online reaction was enough to wipe the smile off Abdrazakova’s face. Within hours of her victory, an avalanche of thousands of hate messages filled with ethnic slurs came in from people espousing Russian nationalist views, forcing Abdrazakova to shut down her social-media pages.

One person wrote that there should be a law barring "Tatar women and also highland and lowland ethnic Shors" from participating in beauty contests.

Another wrote that "a gypsy woman cannot be the face of Russia."

The reaction prompted Abdrazakova to shut down her page on the popular social-networking site Vkontakte.ru "in order to avoid further provocations," as she told the Russian News Service. She added that the comments were motivated by "racism or some kind of nationalism," but added that people in the public spotlight have to expect negative reactions.

She said she expects to put her page back up in the near future.

The reaction against Abdrazakova’s victory comes at a time of rising nationalist sentiment in Russia. Nationalist Cossacks recently began patrolling Moscow streets. They have also pledged to guard Orthodox churches after the performance-art group Pussy Riot offended many believers by performing part of an anti-Putin punk song in Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral.

For winning Miss Russia, Abdrazakova received $100,000 and a scholarship. She will represent Russia in the Miss World and Miss Universe competitions.

Kemerovo Oblast Governor Aman Tuleyev on March 5 presented Abdrazakova with a local medal and the keys to a one-room apartment. He also gave Abdrazakova’s mother a medal for "Maternal Valor" and a 50,000 ruble ($1,630) prize.

The second runner-up in the Miss Russia 2013 pageant, Irina Tumanova from the Republic of Kalmykia, has not reported any similar experience.

In 2004, a Tatar named Diana Zaripova won the Miss Russia contest and there did not appear to be any particular negative reaction.

However, last month a Tatar woman, 21-year-old Dina Garipova, was selected to represent Russia at the Eurovision-2013 competition in Sweden. Although she was not the victim of any outpouring of the kind that Abdrazakova has received, Internet commentators wrote that she doesn’t have "the nerve, the mentality, or the appearance" to be a star.