Every year, the Russian version of Forbes publishes a list of the 50 most popular stars of cinema, television, theater, stage and sports. The peculiarity of this year's rating is that it has more athletes, musicians and fewer comedians.
The main criterion for inclusion in the list is the frequency of mentions in the media and the number of queries in the Yandex search engine. Today we offer Top 10 most famous Russians of 2014, which took the top lines of the Forbes rating.
10. Evgeny Malkin
There are three hockey players in the top ten most popular Russians. Both the Olympics and the 2014 World Cup contributed to this success. Malkin is a two-time world champion, at the last championship he owns two goals.
9. Ksenia Sobchak
New television projects, shooting in commercials, provocative blog entries - all this returned Ksenia to the peak of popularity. Sobchak is also the face of the American Dream development project and is actively meeting with potential buyers of cottages in the village being built as part of the project.
8. Alla Pugacheva
Last year, Pugacheva spurred the attention of the whole country by announcing the birth of twins, which were carried by a surrogate mother. In 2014, Alla Borisovna was awarded the Order of Merit to the Fatherland for her contribution to the development of culture.
7. Evgeni Plushenko
Plushenko's performance at the Olympics and his “retirement” due to problems with the spines made Evgeny the most popular figure skater on the planet. In terms of the number of mentions in the media, the athlete took third place.
6. Ilya Kovalchuk
The popularity of the hockey player was greatly facilitated by the Winter Olympic Games. Ilya actively collaborates with well-known brands, willingly demonstrating his virtuoso playing technique in commercials.
5. Philip Kirkorov
According to VTsIOM, Kirkorov is the most popular Russian musician. Philip is a welcome guest at the celebrations of dignitaries. So, in June last year, the singer performed at the birthday party of the President of Turkmenistan in the company of Jennifer Lopez.
4. Valery Gergiev
During the year, the famous conductor gave more than 270 concerts around the world. The biggest projects of the year for Gergiev were the Stars of the White Nights festival and the Moscow Easter Festival.
3. Grigory Leps
In terms of the number of queries in Yandex, Leps was in first place among all dozens of participants - he was searched more than 5.5 million times. The singer's popularity is promoted not only by music awards and grandiose concerts, but also by the fact that Leps is included by the US Treasury Department on the notorious sanctions list.
2. Alexander Ovechkin
Last season, Ovechkin scored 51 goals, and at the World Championships he became not only the captain of the national team, but also a three-time champion. Alexander's face is “promoted” not only on sports channels, but also in commercials for Nike, Procter & Gamble and Coca Cola.
1. Maria Sharapova
In 2014, Maria won the Roland Garros and was ranked second in the WTA rankings for prize money, earning $ 30.3 million over her entire career. Sharapova is doing well in business, actively appearing in advertising, and is also involved in charity work.