Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021

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Eurovision Song Contest 2021
Country Russia
National selection
Selection processEvrovidenie 2021 – Nacionalniy Otbor
Selection date(s)8 March 2021
Selected entrantManizha
Selected song"Russian Woman"
Selected songwriter(s)
Finals performance
Semi-final resultQualified (3rd, 225 points)
Final result9th, 204 points
Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest
◄2020 • 2021 • 2022►

Russia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2021 in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The Russian broadcaster Channel One Russia (C1R) organised the national selection Evrovidenie 2021 – Nacionalniy Otbor to determine the Russian representative.

Background[]

Main article: Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest

Prior to the 2021 contest, Russia had participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 22 times since its first entry in 1994. Russia had won the contest on one occasion in 2008 with the song "Believe" performed by Dima Bilan. In 2016, Russia finished third with the song "You Are the Only One" performed by Sergey Lazarev, who would later return to represent his country again in 2019 with the song "Scream", also finishing in third place.[1] In 2018, Russia placed fifteenth in the second semi-final with the song "I Won't Break" performed by Yuliya Samoylova, making it the first time Russia did not qualify for the final since the introduction of semi-finals in 2004. In 2020, the band Little Big was set to represent Russia with the song "Uno" before the contest's cancellation.

Before Eurovision[]

Evrovidenie 2021 – Nacionalniy Otbor[]

Evrovidenie 2021 – Nacionalniy Otbor was the eight edition of Evrovidenie, the music competition that selects Russia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The show took place on 8 March 2021 at the Mosfilm Studios in Moscow and hosted by Yana Churikova. Three artists and songs participated and the winner was selected through a public televote. The show was broadcast Channel One as well as online via the broadcaster's website 1tv.ru.[2] The show had a market share of 12.5%, making it the fifth most popular show of the evening and the fourteenth most popular show of the week.[3]

Before selection[]

On 8 May 2020, during an episode of Eurovisioncalls with Little Big as guests, Little Big's members Ilya Prusikin and Sonya Tayurskaya announced that they would submit several songs to Channel One and would be happy to be invited to participate again,[4] however, on 3 March 2021, tabloid super.ru leaked the shortlist of candidates and stated in an article with the list of candidates that "Last year's participant of the Eurovision Song Contest, which was cancelled due to the pandemic, band Little Big, is unlikely to go to the contest this year. According to information from the group's environment, the guys simply did not have a decent musical material to take part in the competition for the second year in a row. But producer Yana Rudkovskaya criticized the idea with a new selection initiated by Channel One, saying that it would be worthwhile to send Little Big again, which would still cope with the task. However, according to insiders, there is still a chance that the musicians will find a hit before the selection and present it to the public."[5] Later, it became known that initially Channel One was going to choose Little Big again for Eurovision. Little Big wrote a song or several songs for Eurovision, at the end of February sent them to C1R and C1R's selection committee, being disappointed with the level of song(s) that group wrote for the contest, decided not to send the group again to the contest and instead choose a new representative.[6] C1R decided to choose a new representative via a national final and on 2 March 2021, it was announced that a national final will be held with several, at that time unknown candidates.[7] Only on the evening of the selection itself, it was officially announced which artists would participate in the national final. Two hours before the selection, names of participants were leaked via Instagram.[8]

Artist and song selection[]

In February, selection committee consisting of representatives of C1R and music industry professionals selected eight candidates,[9][10] among which was Morgenshtern who announced his desire to go to Eurovision in January 2021 after producer Iosif Prigozhin proposed to send him to Eurovision,[11][12] who proceed to the second stage, in which C1R asked the shortlisted artists to submit several unreleased songs for consideration.[13] C1R's selection committee listened to the songs submitted by each act and selected three performers for national final. It is not known which songs were sent by Cream Soda, Egor Kreed and other shortlisted artists, but it is known which songs were sent by Manizha and #2Mashi. The two songs submitted by Manizha were the demo version of "Russian Woman" and a yet-to-be released song "Russian Neighborhood"[13] and one song submitted by #2Mashi was "Bitter Words".[14]

Final[]

The final took place on 8 March 2021. Three entries competed and the winner, "Russian Woman" performed by Manizha, was selected exclusively through a public televote.[20] In addition to the performances of the competing entries, 2020 Russian Eurovision entrants Little Big performed "Uno", 1995 Russian Eurovision entrant Philipp Kirkorov performed a revamped version of "Kolybelnaya dlya vulkana", 2015 Russian Eurovision entrant Polina Gagarina performed the Russian version of "A Million Voices", and 2008 Eurovision winner for Russia Dima Bilan performed "Believe" as guests.[21][22][23][24] Among the competing artists were Manizha (2019 Russian national selection participant[25]), Maria Zaytseva from #2Mashi (2005,[26] 2007[27] and 2008[28] Russian national selection participant as part of A-Sortie) and Victoria Zhuk from Therr Maitz (2010 Russian national selection participant as part of Los Devchatos).[29]

Final – 8 March 2021
Draw Artist Song Songwriter(s) Televote Place
1 Therr Maitz "Future Is Bright" Anton Belyaev, Victoria Zhuk 24.6% 3
2 #2Mashi "Bitter Words" Maria Zaytseva, Maria Sheykh 35.7% 2
3 Manizha "Russkaya zhenshchina" (Русская женщина) Manizha, Ori Avni, Ori Kaplan 39.7% 1

At Eurovision[]

According to Eurovision rules, all nations with the exceptions of the host country and the "Big Five" (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) are required to qualify from one of two semi-finals in order to compete in the final; the top ten countries from each semi-final progress to the final. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) split up the competing countries into six different pots based on voting patterns from previous contests, with countries with favourable voting histories put into the same pot. For the 2021 contest, the semi-final allocation draw held for 2020 which was held on 28 January 2020, will be used. Russia was placed into the first semi-final, which was held on 18 May 2021, and was scheduled to perform in the first half of the show.[30]

Once all the competing songs for the 2021 contest had been released, the running order for the semi-finals was decided by the shows' producers rather than through another draw, so that similar songs were not placed next to each other. Russia was set to perform in position 3, following the entry from Slovenia and preceding the entry from Sweden.[31]

Russia performed 5th in the grand final on 22 May 2021, following Belgium and preceding Malta. At the close of voting it finished on 9th place, receiving 204 points: 100 points from televoting and 104 points from juries.

Voting[]

Voting during the three shows involved each country awarding two sets of points from 1-8, 10 and 12: one from their professional jury and the other from televoting. Each nation's jury consisted of five music industry professionals who are citizens of the country they represent, with a diversity in gender and age represented. The judges assess each entry based on the performances during the second Dress Rehearsal of each show, which takes place the night before each live show, against a set of criteria including: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act.[32] Jury members may only take part in panel once every three years, and are obliged to confirm that they are not connected to any of the participating acts in a way that would impact their ability to vote impartially. Jury members should also vote independently, with no discussion of their vote permitted with other jury members.[33] The exact composition of the professional jury, and the results of each country's jury and televoting were released after the grand final; the individual results from each jury member were also released in an anonymised form.[34][35]

Points awarded to Russia[]

Points awarded by Russia[]

Detailed voting results[]

The following members comprised the Russian jury:[34][35]

Detailed voting results from Russia (Semi-final 1)[36]
Draw Country Jury Televote
Juror A Juror B Juror C Juror D Juror E Average Rank Points Rank Points
01  Lithuania 8 7 10 6 7 9 2 4 7
02  Slovenia 3 11 12 15 13 11 14
03  Russia
04  Sweden 1 6 4 14 8 4 7 9 2
05  Australia 15 8 3 13 10 10 1 10 1
06  North Macedonia 9 14 15 9 12 14 15
07  Ireland 13 12 9 7 11 12 13
08  Cyprus 4 1 6 4 2 3 8 6 5
09  Norway 12 10 14 8 14 13 5 6
10  Croatia 11 9 7 5 5 8 3 12
11  Belgium 10 3 1 11 9 5 6 8 3
12  Israel 2 4 5 1 3 2 10 7 4
13  Romania 14 15 13 10 15 15 11
14  Azerbaijan 7 5 11 12 4 7 4 2 10
15  Ukraine 6 13 8 2 6 6 5 1 12
16  Malta 5 2 2 3 1 1 12 3 8
Detailed voting results from Russia (Final)[37]
Draw Country Jury Televote
Juror A Juror B Juror C Juror D Juror E Average Rank Points Rank Points
01  Cyprus 25 6 14 8 7 9 2 1 12
02  Albania 16 15 23 6 14 12 18
03  Israel 4 4 10 4 6 6 5 19
04  Belgium 9 13 4 22 9 8 3 16
05  Russia
06  Malta 5 7 7 3 10 7 4 13
07  Portugal 20 12 9 20 15 15 22
08  Serbia 23 16 24 17 16 23 17
09  United Kingdom 21 20 16 9 25 17 25
10  Greece 7 3 3 10 2 4 7 15
11   Switzerland 24 10 5 11 21 10 1 6 5
12  Iceland 22 19 11 18 13 16 10 1
13  Spain 19 21 21 19 19 25 23
14  Moldova 2 2 1 1 1 1 12 8 3
15  Germany 8 25 19 25 24 18 14
16  Finland 13 11 20 12 11 14 3 8
17  Bulgaria 10 8 6 2 3 5 6 20
18  Lithuania 15 18 15 23 20 22 9 2
19  Ukraine 12 24 13 13 8 13 4 7
20  France 18 14 18 16 17 20 5 6
21  Azerbaijan 3 1 8 5 4 3 8 7 4
22  Norway 17 23 25 14 22 24 11
23  Netherlands 14 17 17 15 23 21 24
24  Italy 1 5 2 7 5 2 10 2 10
25  Sweden 6 9 12 21 18 11 12
26  San Marino 11 22 22 24 12 19 21

Notes and references[]

Notes[]

  1. ^ Aleksandr said that "There was an offer from Channel One, in fact, we sent them songs, and not just one – different genres, and slow, and fast, but in the end … the bosses think. They have their own vision and their own plans"[17] This means that the reason for non-participation was that Channel One have asked Aleksandr to send several songs for consideration and the selection committee after listening to the songs decided not give Aleksandr the right to participate.[18][19]

References[]

  1. ^ "Russia". EBU. Retrieved 9 March 2019.
  2. ^ "Latest news: Russia makes a little (but big) announcement". eurovision.tv. 2 March 2021. Retrieved 2 March 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ "Рейтинги".
  4. ^ Eurovisioncalls Little Big - Russia
WIKI