Composer Brian Ferneyhough is an infamous figure in contemporary music, regarded with the sort of bafflement and fear once reserved for Berg and Schoenberg. His works are notorious for their mind-boggling complexity. One solo cello piece is written on up to five musical staves – the cello usually requires only one – while the performer is surrounded by a constricting noose of electronic sound. And there is an orchestral piece notated on a 3ft-high schore, the pages dense forests of notes.

The first prison beauty pageant in Siberia took place in 2000, the brainchild of an inmate. It began simply, with costumes created from everyday objects such as plastic bags and fake flowers. These days, the women work together for months before the pageant, which is hardly the competitive, individualistic event implied by the word "contest.". . .

As a woman who grew up in the sixties, I used to consider endorsing any sort of beauty contest inconceivable—but that was before I saw two short documentaries about the pageants at Camp UF-91/9, The Contest, produced by the Polish journalist Zygmunt Dzieciolowski, and Miss Gulag, produced by Neihausen-Yatskova and Vodar Films. They show the contenders taking the runway by storm, cheered on by their peers, in a parody of the stale rigidity and lack of sexuality of traditional pageants. . .

Beauty pageants are now widespread in Russian prisons. Make up, gifts for the unit, and credits toward early release are the prizes.