Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Russia participated in and hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow after winning the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 with the song "Believe" performed by Dima Bilan. The Russian entry was selected through a national final, organised by the Russian broadcaster Channel One Russia (C1R). Anastasia Prikhodko represented Russia with the song "Mamo", which scored 91 points in the final and finished in 11th place.[1]

Eurovision Song Contest 2009
Country Russia
National selection
Selection processEvrovidenie 2009
Selection date(s)7 March 2009
Selected entrantAnastasia Prikhodko
Selected song"Mamo"
Finals performance
Final result11th, 91 points
Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2008 • 2009 • 2010►

Before Eurovision

Evrovidenie 2009

On 10 December 2008, C1R held a press conference regarding the organisation of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009, during which the general director of the channel, Konstantin Ernst, confirmed that the Russian entry for the upcoming contest would be selected through a national final.[2] The final took place on 7 March 2008 at the C1R studios in Moscow, hosted by Andrey Malakhov and Yana Churikova with Dmitry Shepelev reporting from the green room.

Format

Initially, the format of the selection consisted of three stages: the first stage to select the song, the second stage to select three potential singers and the third stage to select the best combination among the three artists performing the selected song.[3] On 4 February 2009, C1R amended the format of the selection to a competition where artists would compete with the songs they have submitted with.[3]

Yuriy Aksyuta, music director at C1R, revealed on 21 February 2009 that over 1,000 entries had already been submitted, and jury panel would evaluate the received submissions and select 15-20 entries for the competition. On 26 February 2009, C1R announced the 15 entries that were selected to compete in the competition.[3] After the list was released, several of the selected entries were in violation of the rules of the Eurovision Song Contest, in particular, the rule according to which participating songs, in full or in part, should not be publicly performed, released as audio or video, published on the internet or in any other way before 1 October 2008. Venger Collective, Tim Rocks, Polina Griffith and Kvatro all entered songs that were in violation of this rule. Polina Griffith changed her entry from "Love Is Independent" to "Cry For You" and Kvatro changed their entry from "Ya tebya lyublyu" to "Lyubovyu otvechay". The other performers continued in the competition with ineligible songs.[3]

On 5 March 2009, an additional entry was added by C1R: Anastasia Prikhodko and the song "Mamo". The decision to include the entry days before the national final was scheduled to take place was seen as controversial and in violation of the rules that Channel One had outlined for the competition.[3] Prikhodko also attempted to participate in the 2009 Ukrainian national selection, and her early elimination from that contest, due to rule violations, inspired the singer to protest the decisions of the organisers of the Ukrainian pre-selection, thus launching a campaign to be reinstated with the song "Mamo".[3] Prikhodko discontinued her efforts to participate in Ukraine after her inclusion in the Russian national final.

Final

The final took place on 7 March 2009. The winner was selected over two rounds of voting. In the first round, public televoting exclusively determined the top three entries to proceed to the superfinal: "Mamo" performed by Anastasia Prikhodko, "Back to Love" performed by Valeriya and "Lyubovyu otvechay" performed by Kvatro. In the superfinal, the winner was selected entirely by an eleven-member jury.[4] Each jury member could cast one vote for their preferred song, which led to the victory of "Mamo" performed Anastasia Prikhodko with six of the eleven votes.[5] The jury panel that voted in the second round consisted of television and music producers: Yuriy Aksyuta, Kim Breitburg, Alexander Dulov, Igor Krutoy, Alexander Lunyov, Vladimir Matetsky, Ruben Oganesov, Larisa Sinelschikova, Maxim Fadeev, as well as the secretary of organising committee of the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in the Government of the Russian Federation, Alexander Barannikov and head of the Humanitarian Cooperation Council of CIS countries, Dzhohan Pollyeva.[3]

In addition to the performances of the competing entries, former Russian Eurovision entrants Dima Bilan, Alsou and Serebro, and artists from different countries that have already been selected to compete at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009: Jade Ewen for the United Kingdom, Patricia Kaas for France, Sakis Rouvas for Greece and AySel and Arash for Azerbaijan performed as the interval act.[6]

Final – 7 March 2009
Draw Artist Song Songwriter(s) Televote Place
1 Anna Semenovich "Love lovila" (Love ловила) Sergey Revtov, Natalya Pushkova 8% 5
2 Tomas N'evergreen "One More Try" Tomas Christiansen 2% 11
3 Aleksa "Ne dumat o tebye" (Не думать о тебе) Alexander Lunyov, O. Tomashevskiy, Elena Kiper, O. Borschevskiy 7% 6
4 Plazma "Never Ending Story" Roman Chernitsyn, Maxim Postelniy 3% 8
5 Anastasia Prikhodko "Mamo" (Мамо) Konstantin Meladze, Diana Golde 25% 1
6 Valeriya "Back to Love" Valeriya, Chris Eaton, Franceska Aeschlimann, Ben Robbins 14% 2
7 Nano "Traitor" Ivar Lisinski, David Clewett, Fanny Bjurström 2% 11
8 Tim Rocks "The Happiest Man" Tim Rocks, Otto Notman, Tatyana Notman 1% 15
9 Princessa Avenue "Never, Never" Viktor Drobysh, Maki Kolehmainen, Tracy Lipp, Mats Tärnfors 2% 11
10 Nikolay Fokeev "You Can Stop the Time" Anton Golubev 1% 15
11 Venger Collective "9 O'Clock Moscow" Vladislav Vengerovsky, Alexander Lygin 3% 8
12 Polina Griffith "Cry for You" Jerry Barnes 5% 7
13 Alexey Vorobyov "Angelom byt" (Ангелом быть) Alexey Vorobyov, Alexander Saharov 10% 4
14 Unisex "Ai-ai-ai" Evgeniy Kostenko, Leonid Gorenstein 2% 11
15 Arishata "Breakdown" Roman Styx, Dmitry Buzadzhi, Sara Buzadzhi 3% 8
16 Kvatro "Lyubovyu otvechay" (Любовью отвечай) Leonid Ovrutskiy 12% 3
Superfinal – 7 March 2009
Draw Artist Song Points Place
1 Anastasia Prikhodko "Mamo" 6 1
2 Valeriya "Back to Love" 5 2
3 Kvatro "Lyubovyu otvechay" 0 3

Controversy

Prikhodko's win sparked allegations of vote-rigging.[7] Valeriya's producer Yusif Prigozhin did not agree with the bilingual nature of Prikhodko's song stating: “A song performed in Ukrainian can’t have anything to do with Russia”.[7]

At Eurovision
Anastasia Prikhodko at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009 in Moscow.

As the winner of the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 and host of the 2009 Contest, Russia automatically qualified for a place in the final, held on 16 May 2009. In addition to their participation in the final, Russia was assigned to vote in the second semi-final on 14 May 2009.[8]

During the draw for running order on 16 March 2009, Russia was drawn to perform 10th in the final.[9] In the final, Russia performed following Armenia and preceding Azerbaijan.[10] The Russian performance featured Prikhodko in a white dress joined by five backing vocalists dressed in costumes with ethnic elements. The various screens of the stage displayed Prikhodko's face being progressively aged while singing the lyrics of the song. Russia placed 11th in the final, scoring 91 points. On 31 July 2009, the European Broadcasting Union released the split results for the final.[11]

Split results
  • In the Final Russia came 11th with 91 points: the public awarded Russia 8th place with 118 points and the jury awarded 17th place with 67 points.

In Russia, both the semi-finals and the final were broadcast on Channel One Russia, with commentary provided by Yana Churikova for all shows, Aleksey Manuylov for the semi-finals and Philipp Kirkorov for the final.

For the 2009 Contest, a national jury of five members was assembled by every country in order to provide 50% of the votes in the final of the competition in combination with the results of the televoting. Russia's votes in the second semi-final were determined solely from the result of the public televote. The national jury that provided 50% of the Russian vote in the final consisted of: Igor Matvienko (producer), Youddiph (singer), Tamara Gverdtsiteli (singer), Alexander Lunev (composer) and Elena Kiper (producer).[12] The voting spokesperson for Russia was Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė.

Points awarded by Russia
Split voting results from Russia (final)
Draw Country Jury points Televoting points Scoreboard (Points)
01  Lithuania
02  Israel
03  France 12 5 10
04  Sweden 3
05  Croatia
06  Portugal
07  Iceland 6 3
08  Greece 8 1 4
09  Armenia 1 8 5
10  Russia
11  Azerbaijan 3 10 7
12  Bosnia and Herzegovina 2
13  Moldova 4 1
14  Malta 2
15  Estonia 7 7 8
16  Denmark
17  Germany
18  Turkey
19  Albania
20  Norway 10 12 12
21  Ukraine 5 2
22  Romania
23  United Kingdom 6 4 6
24  Finland
25  Spain

Points awarded to Russia
Points awarded to Russia (Final)[1]
12 points 10 points 8 points 7 points 6 points
5 points 4 points 3 points 2 points 1 point

See also

References
  1. "Eurovision Song Contest 2009 Final". Eurovision.tv. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  2. Klier, Marcus (10 December 2008). "Russia: televised national selection again". ESCToday.com. Retrieved 10 December 2008.
  3. Mikheev, Andy. "Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2009". ESCKaz. Retrieved 29 July 2013.
  4. "RUSSIAN NATIONAL FINAL 2009".
  5. Omelyanchuk, Olena (7 March 2009). "Russia votes for Anastasia Prikhodko". Eurovision.tv. Retrieved 7 March 2009.
  6. Klier, Marcus (7 March 2009). "Live: National final in Russia". ESCToday.com. Retrieved 7 March 2009.
  7. "Eurovision vote-rigging row as Ukrainian wins contest to represent Russia". The Times. 10 March 2009. Retrieved 10 March 2009.
  8. Floras, Stella (30 January 2009). "Live:The Eurovision Semi Final draw". ESCToday.com. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  9. Klier, Marcus (16 March 2009). "Live: Draw of the running order". ESCToday.com. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  10. Klier, Marcus (15 May 2009). "UPD The complete running order for the final". ESCToday.com. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  11. Bakker, Sietse (31 July 2009). "Exclusive: Split jury/televoting results out!". EBU. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  12. Состав российского жюри конкурса песни "Евровидение-2009". Channel One Russia (in Russian). 18 May 2009. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
  13. "Eurovision Song Contest 2009 Semi-Final (2)". Eurovision.tv. Retrieved 26 July 2013.
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