Miss Ukraine slams Miss Grand International promoter
Ukrainian Beauty queen Olga Vasyliv slammed Miss Grand International 2022 promoters as politically insensitive after they assigned a hotel room for her to share with her Russian counterpart Ekaterina Astashenkova.
The Thai-based beauty pageant, Miss Grand International, is promoted by famous Thai media celebrity Nawat Itsaragrisil. The pageant was founded in Thailand in 2013 amid a political crisis in the kingdom with the contest using the “Stop the Wars and Violence” slogan.
The pageant then launched franchises in different countries and invited winners from those nations to join the Miss Grand International final.
This year’s final takes place in Indonesia. Each representative is expected to take part in pageant-related activities for the weeks leading up to the final on October 25 at the Sentul International Conventions Centre of Indonesia.
Beauty queens from 72 countries across the world arrived in Indonesia this week and the pageant holder announced the roommate pairing on its official page, with Miss Ukraine paired with Miss Russia.
Yesterday, Vasyliv took to Instagram to vent her spleen and urged the promoters to be politically sensitive. See the full post here.
In a part of the post, Vasyliv said…
“Today, my story is this: all the while I’m on my long way to the competition @missgrandinternational in which my main goal, purpose, and mission, is to tell the world about my country, about the Ukrainian spirit, about our beauty, about our strength and about what we are enduring right now. I received a letter that instilled in me feelings of rage and pain. My assigned roommate is going to be a competitor from a terrorist country, from a country that has lost all law and order, from a despot country, from the disgusting and deceitful stain on the body of our beautiful planet, from Russia.”
Vasyliv tagged Nawat’s Instagram account with the message “Dear @nawat.tv , believe me, I am also for peace, for love, friendship, and support, but not for those who I cannot forgive. Not for those who torture my brothers and sisters. Not for those who took the lives of so many fellow Ukrainians. I am important! My opinion is important! My feelings are important, and my Ukraine is important! Glory to Ukraine.”
Many netizens commented on Vasyliv’s post. Some said that the promoter is trying to benefit from the conflict and paired the two contestants on purpose to make the contest viral. Others demanded the pageant holder to change the room sharing situation while the others urged Vasyliv to think positively and that the beauty pageant has nothing to do with the war.
At the time of publication Miss Russia nor the pageant promoters have commented on the situation.
