Sloppy Seconds for Russia

It was a case of second time lucky for singer Anastasia Prykhodko when she won the Russian Eurovision national finals with her song Mamo, the same song that had just been rejected by the national broadcaster of her native Ukraine. The music to the song Mamo was written by a Georgian and the song is performed partially in Russian, Ukrainian and Estonian.

Any country participating in the Eurovision is free to send nationals of any country they choose, most notable examples being Canada's Celine Dion who once represented Switzerland and Australian-born Johnny Logan who won for Ireland three times.

However the fact that the host country Russia chose a foreigner to represent them in Moscow has raised eyebrows and caused storms of protest in the Russian press, particularly because Georgia, Estonia and Ukraine have not had the warmest relationships with Russia in recent years.

Some have even gone as far to speculate the vote was rigged, with the many interconnections and cross-ownerships of the Russia's television, telecom and music industries being held up as a possible motive.

A more positive interpretation is that citizens of Russia are demonstrating that their country is more multicultural and accepting of diversity than their newspapers believe and the recent actions of their Government might show.

Prykhodko who won the Russian TV equivalent of Australian Idol, Star Factory, is already well known in Russia. She sings a medium tempo song let down by repetitive lyrics with a very basic stage show.
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As host country, Russia does not need to quality through the Semi-Finals as it has an automatic place in the Finals.

Russian Revolution

In a close result Russia has won the 2008 Eurovision, followed by Ukraine and Greece. The top five scoreboards was:

1st Russia (272 points)
2nd Ukraine (230 points)
3rd Greece (218 points)
4th Armenia (199 points)
5th Norway (182 points)

UK contestant Andy Abraham came in joint last place with just 14 points, equal with Germany and Poland.

For the second year running there was remarkable agreement between the voting in Western and Eastern Europe. Despite immediate claims of Eastern bias from a BBC commentator, an analysis of the voting from Western European countries (with the Eastern votes excluded) produced virtually identical results with the same top five countries, just in a slightly different order.

It is yet to be confirmed which Russian city will host the next Eurovision, however it is likely to be Moscow. The provisional dates for the 2009 competition have been announced by the EBU listen.

Dramatic Changes to Russian Stageshow

The second Russian rehearsals revealed dramatic changes to the Russian Stageshow with the removal of planned steps and a frame. This was explained by Dima's choreographer as follows listen. The Olympic skater Pluschenko described the ice rink they are using listen and compared Eurovision with the Olympics listen.

Stradivarius upstages Dima

In a curious press conference from Russian Singer Dima Bilan the sounds of Vivaldi wafted through the Eurovision Press Centre listen as one of Dima's musicians had brought his antique violin and wanted to demonstrate he could play it. There then followed a strange live version of Dima's song where the violinist seemed to be playing to a different beat if not a different tune altogether while Dima struggled and failed to hold his microphone correctly to get a clear sound listen.

Dima was also joined on the stage by Russian Olympic figure skating champion Eugeni Pluschenko, although his relevance to Eurovision was not explained. The press conference was brought to a close by an even more bizarre version of last year's winning song Molitva listen.

Russia finally to hear wedding bells?

With Eurovision rehearsals starting tomorrow in Belgrade, there has been a dramatic change in the bookies' predictions for the 2008 winner since we last looked. Ireland has dropped to 6th place with Russia now assuming the position of favourite.

Russia is the eternal-bridesmaid-never-bride of the Eurovision, having been placed in the top three in the last two grand finals and otherwise finishing strongly but never yet actually winning. This year Russia is represented again by Dima Bilan watch who also represented Russia in Eurovision Athens in 2006 with an memorable act which involved a ballet dancer emerging from a piano mid-song.