Country Russia Selection date(s) 7 March 2010 Selected song "Lost and Forgotten" | Selection process Evrovidenie-2010 Selected entrant Peter Nalitch | |
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Semi-final result Qualified (7th, 74 points) | ||
Russia participated at the Eurovision Song Contest 2010, held in Oslo, Norway in May 2010, and was represented by broadcaster Russia 1.
Contents
National final
A national final was held on 7 March 2010 to select the Russian entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 2010. 25 acts competed, with the songs selected from an open call for songs by Russia 1. The winner was selected through a combination of televoting and a professional jury.
On 26 February Russia 1 released a shortlist of 35 artists that would compete in an internal selection on 1 March at the Nazarov's Theatre in Moscow. An internal jury was to reduce this number to 25 finalists, who could be joined by a number of wildcards selected by the broadcaster which need not have been submitted to the open selection. Russia 1 announced the 25 selected entries from the shortlist on 2 March. No further wildcards were added by Russia 1.
Eurovision winner-2008 Dima Bilan had planned to enter the national final with a song "White Nights", written by former Eurovision contestant and songwriter Philip Kirkorov, and was immediately tipped for victory. However Bilan's song did not appear in the shortlist of entries, with no reason given by Bilan's producer Yana Rudkovskaya for his withdrawal, except that it was a mutual decision between Bilan, Kirkorov and herself.
The show was hosted by Oxana Fedorova and Dmitry Guberniev from Vladimir Nazarov's Theater in Moscow. As in the Eurovision Song Contest voting opened after the first entry has performed, and closed 10 minutes after the final entry was performed. Guest performances were made by the winners of 2 recent Eurovision Song Contests: Dima Bilan (2008) and Alexander Rybak (2009).
The Peter Nalitch Band were the winners of the final with the song "Lost and Forgotten", winning with a commanding lead over Oleg Bezinskikh in second place and the Buranovskiye Babushki in third place.
At Eurovision
Russia competed in the first semi-final of the contest, on 25 May 2010. Though it looks that the success of Russia in the Semi-Final voting caused a matter of contention as there was prominent booing during the television broadcast of the first semi final and the show itself. This booing was noted by commentators at the time of broadcast as it was hard to ignore.