- The competition required men and women to undress for a chance to win an iPhone
- They were arrested and threatened with prison
- One woman publicly apologized after the match
A striptease contest in which participants took off their clothes for the chance to win an iPhone has sparked outrage in Russia, with authorities forcing revellers to make obsequious apologies and threatening them with jail time.
Organizers asked two men and two women to go to the front of the club, believed to be in a bunker in the southeastern Astrakhan region, and take off their clothes.
Video footage from the evening shows three of them nervously undressing, while a 22-year-old woman is only too happy to take off her clothes for a chance to win an Apple product.
After Russian authorities arrested the four on stage, as well as several others who had helped organize the event, and threatened them with 15 days in prison, the woman was forced to apologize.
She said: ‘I am incredibly sorry for what I did. My actions were immoral and not normal at all. I am deeply ashamed that I did it.
Although lurid striptease shows are common in Putin’s Russia, this contest was seen as a violation of decency standards.
Video footage from the evening showed three of them nervously undressing, with a 22-year-old woman eager to take off her clothes for a chance to win an Apple product.
The organizers and participants were all arrested by Russian authorities
The unnamed woman said in her cringe-worthy apology: “I am incredibly sorry for what I did. My actions were immoral and not normal at all. I am deeply ashamed that I did it.”
“What I went through today, these emotions, I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I sincerely apologize to everyone. I apologize to my family, and to my hometown.”
Vladimir Putin’s governor of the Astrakhan region, Igor Babushkin, expressed outrage over the stunt, as police raided the club.
Although gruesome striptease shows are commonplace in Putin’s Russia, this contest was seen as a breach of decency standards.
“What happened in the Bunker nightclub is a disgrace to all of us,” the dictator-loyal governor shouted angrily.
‘At a time when thousands of our compatriots, without caring for their lives, are defending the motherland in the [war]…a number of inhuman people, who have lost all shame and conscience, have carried out an immoral act that humiliates human dignity.’
The contestants stripped naked for the chance to win an iPhone
The governor of the region accused them of selling themselves for “an American phone”
He was furious in his online post: ‘Do they even know what a BUNKER is?’
‘Do they know what is happening in the real BUNKERS, there at the front?
“They sold themselves for an American telephone, which the advertising industry and the media have made a symbol of success and prosperity for an entire generation.”
He questioned whether nudity should be allowed in Russia during the war that Putin has started.
‘I am convinced that the public has the right to know by name who organized this atrocity, who participated in it, who showed their shame, who applauded and rejoiced in this horror.’