`Miss Europe` title goes from a Russian to a Hungarian

The `Miss Europe-2003` beauty contest, held Friday night in Nogent sur Marne, a small town east of Paris, brought victory to a Hungarian girl.

The winner received a cheque for 100,000 euros of prize money, a car, a diamond necklace and a voucher for a romantic trip to Guadeloupe. The pageant ended with Miss Europe-2002, Russia's Svetlana Koroleva, crowning the new European beauty queen with a gold tiara carrying 678 embedded diamonds.

A Slovakian girl became the contest's first runner-up.

Winners of national beauty contests from 36 countries took part in the pageant. Russia was represented by Yulia Akhonkova, an 18-year-old student from Moscow. She qualified to the semi-final with eleven other contestants but failed to make it to the final round.

Rules of the contest have been changed this year, and Miss Europe-2003 was elected by members of the jury, not by TV viewers as before. Russia was represented on the jury by the top model Irina Zotova who has this year become "the face" of Wonderbra, a famed producer of female underwear.