Naked Playboy photo spread cost Russian woman her government job and is now unable to find new employment
A Russian police government official lost her job after she appeared in a Playboy photospread and has been struggling to find new employment elsewhere ever since.
Twenty seven-year-old Anna Anufriyeva resigned as the Tyumen region’s chief government procurement specialist after bosses learned of her entry in a Playboy Russia contest back in May, The Moscow Times reports.
Speaking to U.S.-funded sibreal.org, she revealed that she was told at a recent interview in her department "that I acted unethically and I can’t work at government agencies."
While the former civil servant does get offers from private commercial organizations, potential regional and municipal employers tell her that “unlike other public servants, I’m not a role model,” she said. When asked whether she was forced to resign after serving five years on the job, Anufriyeva said, “let’s just say they weren’t talking me out of submitting the resignation letter.”
“In essence, it was society that fired me and not the employer,” she insisted in an earlier interview with Playboy Russia.
In a conversation with sibreal.org, Anufriyeva said she had arranged the photoshoot for herself and that she had wanted to do it at least once in her life. She subsequently came across an Instagram ad for Playboy's Girl of the Year 2019 contest and submitted the photos to them.
The Russian beauty had hoped to someday pose for the publication's highly sought annual calendar.
“I have such beautiful photos that I wanted to share them," she told Playboy. “This is a brave step for me but I want to be brave. In daily life, I am a civil servant.”
According to the report, Anufriyeva wanted to break barriers on how a Russian civil servant is otherwise expected to behave. “It should not only be models, fitness instructors and bloggers who are allowed to get naked," she said. “I like this genre of photography, and the balanced female body is nature’s top example of perfection.”
Empathizing with her plight, the glossy men's magazine expressed support for Anufriyeva, saying it regrets that “publishing erotic photoshoots is still a risky step for women that can lead to problems.”
This comes a year after another Siberian state employee grabbed headlines after she was fired over a series pinup photo series. The controversy saw a series of brave Russian teachers posting photos of themselves in bikinis in a nationwide campaign.