Country Russia Selection date(s) 7 March 2009 Selected song "Mamo" | Selection process National Final Selected entrant Anastasia Prikhodko Final result 11th, 91 points | |
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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.
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National final
On 10 December 2008, Channel One 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. Initially, the format of the selection consisted of three stages: the first stage would select the song, the second stage would select three potential singers and the third stage would select the best combination of one of the three artists performing the selected song. On 4 February 2009, Channel One amended the format of the selection to a competition where artists would compete with the songs they submitted. Yuriy Aksyuta, music director at Channel One, revealed on 21 February 2009 that over 1000 entries had already been submitted to the competition and that an expert jury would be responsible for selecting 15-20 entries to compete in the national final. On 26 February 2009, Channel One announced the 15 entries that were selected to compete in the competition.
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.
On 5 March 2009, Channel One added Anastasia Prikhodko and the song "Mamo" as the 16th participant in the national final. The decision to include another 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. Prikhodko was previously participating 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 and launch a campaign to be reinstated with the song "Mamo". Prikhodko discontinued her efforts to participate in Ukraine after her inclusion in the Russian national final.
Final
The Russian national final was held on 7 March 2009 at the Channel One television studios in Moscow, hosted by Andrey Malakhov and Yana Churikova with Dmitry Shepelev reporting from the green room. In the first round of the competition, a combination of jury (50%) and televoting (50%) selected the top three entries to qualify to a Super Final. In the Super Final, each member of the jury could cast one vote for the song they preferred and the song with the highest number of votes would be the winner.
Several interval acts were included in the show including 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.
Anastasia Prikhodko performing "Mamo", Valeriya performing "Back to Love" and Kvatro performing "Lyubovyu otvechay" qualified to the Super Final.
Super Final
An eleven-member jury selected the final winner from the three super finalists. The winner, receiving six of the eleven votes, was Anastasia Prikhodko and the song "Mamo".
The jury panel included 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.
Prikhodko's win sparked allegations of vote-rigging. 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”.
At Eurovision
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.
During the draw for running order on 16 March 2009, Russia was drawn to perform 10th in the final. In the final, Russia performed following Armenia and preceding Azerbaijan. 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. The results of the televoting placed Russia in 8th place with 118 points, while the jury vote placed Russia 17th 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). The voting spokesperson for Russia was Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė.