LONDON (Reuters) - Ex-Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev may regret Moscow is no longer a superpower, but he was beaming proudly on Thursday at Russian world dominance on another stage -- Miss Universe 2002.
"I welcome this -- I was not surprised that a Russian won that contest," he said of raven-haired compatriot Oxana Fedorova's lifting of the world's most coveted beauty crown in Puerto Rico on Wednesday night.
"Russians can win in all kinds of competitions, starting with mathematics and Olympics, with young boys and girls, and all the way to beauty contests."
Despite that display of patriotism, Gorbachev, in London for a conference on the weightier topic of capital flight and money laundering, did at first have trouble recalling exactly what competition Russian had won.
"What was it? The Eurovision song contest?" he responded to a journalist's question, according to an English translation. "It was, by the way, an ethnic Russian, but she was a Latvian citizen, who won that contest."
Jazz singer and law graduate Marija Naumova, or "Marie N," won the annual song contest last weekend.
Post-graduate student Fedorova's victory in Puerto Rico was the first time a Miss Russia had won Miss Universe.