There She Is . . . Miss Moscow?

--A teen-ager won Moscow’s first beauty pageant and her prizes drew gasps from the audience of 12,000 at the Luzhniki Palace of Sports. Mariya Kalinina, who was graduated from high school this year and will turn 17 in September, won a cruise on the Adriatic Sea, a trip to Austria, a television set and cosmetics from the Western and Soviet sponsors of the event. The other finalists, and some other contestants, received cosmetics and trips inside the Soviet Union for categories such as the “most photogenic” and “most athletic.” Trips abroad are rare for Soviet citizens, and Western cosmetics of the type distributed to the finalists are highly prized there. Unlike American pageants in which the contestants walk past judges in their bathing suits, the Miss Moscow contestants stood still in lines in the swimsuit and evening dress competition. The final night of the three-day event went smoothly until the glittering crown was placed on Kalinina’s head. At that moment, long-stemmed red roses began to rain from the ceiling, knocking off the crown and causing the beauty queen to duck and dodge, although she never lost her smile.

--In the United States, another beauty queen spoke up for her fellow nurses. Kaye Lani Rae Radko, Miss America 1988, appeared at the convention of the American Nurses’ Assn. Inc. in Louisville, Ky. “Nurses are underpaid, and we are the heart of the health care team,” said Radko, a registered nurse from Monroe, Mich. “Without us, there would be a drastic decline in the health care administered to this nation.” Radko, a graduate of St. Vincent Medical Center School of Nursing in Toledo, Ohio, said poor working conditions and low salaries are discouraging many from entering the profession.

--Abbie Hoffman has good memories of Northampton, Mass. That’s where he, Amy Carter and others were acquitted of trespassing and disorderly conduct charges stemming from an anti-CIA protest at the University of Massachusetts in nearby Amherst. The activist will be returning, but not just for old times’ sake. He will be host there for the “ ‘60s Revival Ball” set for Sunday to raise funds for the Anti-Nuclear Media Fund, a national organization being formed in the Northampton area that will fund anti-nuclear advertising, “This visit doesn’t represent nostalgia because I expect to spend a lot of time in Northampton,” the 51-year-old founder of the yippie movement of the ‘60s said. “I’m still officially banned from the University of Massachusetts, so I have to eventually go back and break that law.”