Eurovision - Russia:
History of Russian participations in the contest.
http://russia.esckaz.com/

At the same year when Eurovision Song Contest celebrates 50th anniversary in 2005, we had another anniversary at the local scene - 10th Russian participant of the contest was selected.
In connection with this event we have prepared this project. It is not a first attempt to cover misterious and some times confusing events and national selections of the 90th and 00th, but the most full and complete history of Russian participations in the world's most known music event.
Besides of the usual components of every historical review as information on participants, biographies, song lyrics and versions, statistical results, we tried to add private comments of the participants and of other persons involved, and also we present here results of the own investigations of the background of National Preselections, most of which are published exclusively and for the very first time.

The project is continuously updated

	List of versions of all Russian Eurovision songs: Grand finals and national preselections, and list of releases containing this songs: Russia at Eurovision: mp3 collectors guide Russia at Eurovision: CD collectors guide
	Cover versions, remakes of Eurovision songs by Russian and Soviet singers, and also of Russian Eurovision songs by foreign performers and their releases: Russia at Eurovision: Cover versions
	All performers connected with Eurovision and Russia: participants of Grand finals and national preselections and performers of Eurovision cover versions as well (photos and weblinks): Russia at Eurovision: Faces Russia at Eurovision: Links
	Year 1994 - debute of the Russia at Eurovision Song Contest. National preselection is sensationally won by unknown performer with stage name Youddiph and her performance at the final of the contest still remains as model of professional performance not beaten by any of future Russian representatives. More info
	Year 1995 - the baton is passed on to ORT broadcaster which decides at the last moment, failing to discover better candidate, to send Russian star Philip Kirkorov, whose performance at the contest remained obscure for European audience... More info
	Year 1996 - second and last open National Final organized by RTR is won by talented Andrei Kosinskiy. Unfortumately audio version of his songs failed to impress European jurors at additional preselection level and Andrei was not given a chance to test his luck again and to present his brilliant live performance of "Ya eto Ya" to the European audience. Russian channel RTR stops participation in Eurovision after this year. More info
	Year 1997 - ORT, not thinking a lot again, and not learning from the mistakes of 1995 sends to the contest "Primadonna" of Russian scene Alla Pugachova. The only effect of this performance was that European fans used pictures of Russian star to frighten their naughty children... More info
---	Year 1998 - ORT as we all know, is not very fluent with the rules of the contest. Deciding to send to the ESC Tatyana Ovsienko (which is denied though by some sources), organizers accidently found out that Russia have no right to participate in the event of 1998 because of low points average collected during latest experiments. More info
---	Year 1999 - Vexed ORT is not broadcasting 1998 edition where Russian singers is not taking part, simply forgetting about the rule which claims that country have to run live broadcast of the event in 1998 to take part in the contest of 1999. No participant from Russia for one more year. More info
	Year 2000 - ORT continue announcing national preselections and at the same time appoints young Alsou Safina as their ESC choice. Strong management team of Alsou hires foreign authors, arrangers, designers, dancers and backing vocalists and fight for the 2nd place which up till now remains the highest position of Russian singer at the Eurovision More info
	Year 2001 - Successful performance of Latvian Brainstorm band in 2000 affected on the choice of Russian band of same format Mumiy Troll as Russian representative at the contest. Same time band's management was looking for promotion of the band on European scene. Adventure resulted in another failure as band was not understood in Europe and considered poor copy of Latvian one. More info
	Year 2002 - for the first and as it appeared for the last time Channel One (ex ORT) is publishing list of the finalists of internal preselection. The only candidate in this list which really deserved the ticket is band "Premier-Ministr", whose song possibly was the most fitting to the format of Eurovision. Unfortunately, usual wonderful live performance of the band was very nervous at the contest itself... More info
	Year 2003 - again announcing submission period for another internal selection Channel One invites without any selection the only Russian project which had at the moment popularity in Europe - t.A.T.u. duet. But organizers again mixed all rules, failed to submit required information in time, and management of the duet doesn't care about Eurovision at all. Scandal attempt failed after serious steps taken by EBU and live performance was the worst one in history of Russian participations. More info
	Year 2004 - Channel One decides to make promotion to the reality show Stars Factory project. Same time Maksim Fadeev decides to send his protegee to the Eurovision. So Russian representative this year is Yulia Savicheva, shy and constrained girl, not posessing any huge vocal talents. After spending a lot of money on preparations Maksim understood the full hopelessness of the project and even not goes to Turkey. More info
	Year 2005 - For the first time Channel One organizes open preselection, which was run with few mistakes and few ineligible songs taking part, but the result had no signs of prejudice. Bad precontest preparation though led to the worst place for Russia in the whole era of televoting, while the live performance itself vocally was the best during the last few years... More info
	Year 2006 - promised changes in the open preselection which should run for few monthes turn out to be another false promises from Channel One and we returned to usual 'internal' selection. Dima Bilan goes to Eurovision and his successful 2nd place is shadowed by the post contest histeria arosen by Channel One officials. More info
???	Year 2007 - Channel "Russia" (RTR) will be back in the duties of Eurovision broadcaster.

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All pictures and lyrics from the artists and song writers are under copyright of the original owner and are protected by Rome convention 1961. If you suppose that a certain picture or piece of lyrics belongs to you and you don't want us to use it, please contact us at the e-mail mentioned and it will be removed in 24 hours after confirmation.
All audio files were taken from the open sources and are presented with lowered bitrate for demonstration purposes only. We would also like to thank Malcolm Codd from Eurovision-Jukebox site for his cooperation, video files and additional pictures.