Eurovision 2017: Russia
Mar. 22nd, 2017 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
passionpopRussia
Semi Final 2
Artist: Юлия Олеговна Julia Samoylova
Song: Flame is Burning
Odds: $21
Word of the day:
пропаганда - Propaganda
Take out of that what you will.
Julia may not be allowed into the Ukraine due to politics, which there is none of in Eurovision. Her ban is due to her going into Crimea in 2015 to perform at a gala concert, which is a completely political ban. Some has suggested that the song was picked because if its title and to raise the ire of the Ukrainian authorities. Well it wasn't picked for being a great song, thats for sure.
After coming second in Фактор А (Faktor A), The Russian X-Factor, Julia has had moderate success, though she was known in Russia before Фактор А. Julia had won a number of competitions and was also in a group called TerraNova, who were (heavy) alternative according some translated articles. Perhaps Julia is best known for being part of the opening ceremony at the Sochi winter Olympics... Interestingly Sochi was the location that it was rumoured that Russia would use to host this years Eurovision had they won last year.
Russia determined their song and performer using an internal selection, which is not unusual. Russia has not let the people vote since 2012... for their Eurovision representative at least... That was the last time there was a Presidential election in Russia, but I couldn't comment on the voting.
So Russia's song this year is 'Flame is Burning' and in 1995 they gave us a Lullaby for a volcano, which is along the same theme though I like the hair from 1995 better.
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Ukraine Bans Russia
Date: 2017-03-22 01:37 pm (UTC)http://www.dw.com/en/ukraine-bars-russia-entry-from-eurovision-song-contest-2017/a-38068681?maca=en-tco-dw
Withdrawn
Date: 2017-04-16 02:28 am (UTC)Eurovision is meant to be beyond politics. this years theme is Celebrate Diversity... which is a bit political in itself, but Ukraine is the whinging toddler of eastern Europe.
The issue is their reasoning. Yulia (Russia's entrant) has been to the Crimea since 2014 and entered through a non Ukrainian checkpoint. 10s of thousands of people have potentially done that, including, apparently, the Armenian entrant for this years contest, Artsvik.
Yulia was not on the original lists of people banned, and these lists have been expanded constantly since August 2016. she was only banned after her announcement when she was investigated, found to have gone to crimea and then when questions Yulia admitted it.
All the reports say that Artsvik has gone to crimea have not reported any denial from Armenia. Ukraine also insists that it will investigate all performers and visitors as much as they can... which probably wont be much seeing they have got russia out of the contest... or have they
At least three remaining countries have russian citizens competing for them this year. at least two of those have been accused of entering crimea. Armenia is the only one who has been accused of entering the crimea since 2014. Most of these accusations point back to the russian media (https://www.gazeta.ru/cul.../news/2017/03/21/n_9824369.shtml), which you may take with a grain of salt at first glance, but then 'illegally' entering crimea is to go into the crimea without going through an Ukrainian checkpoint... which logically means you have to go through russia or russian checkpoints. How is the Ukraine really going to know who entered? Russia will know. Russia knows all...
The DG of RTV in San Marino has spoken out against the ban on Russia (https://eurovoix.com/.../san-marino-director-general.../), is San Marino going to be banned? Will russian allies like Serbia have issues this year? Surely there are people in the Serbian delegation who will have been found to somewhere have mentioned Ukraine being dicks.
1000s of people are apparently now banned from entering Ukraine, including Gerard Depardieu, who's only crime, aside from the movie French Kiss, has been that he has spoken out against Ukraine in regards to Crimea. (NB: Depardieu is also a Russian citizen after taking issue with the French tax rate)
Crimea, historically is not even Ukrainian. In the USSR the administration of Crimea was handed to Ukraine. Even if the area was ethnically or historically Ukrainian they had a vote, and regardless of how democratic that vote is perceived to have been, Crimea voted to join Russia.
On a side note I saw a story on Foreign Correspondent about the Crimea quite a while ago. Once upon a time Crimea was a holiday playground for the Russians. Now, due to lack of investment, intervention and visitors it has fallen into disrepair. The story showed roads crumbling apart and ships rusting in the harbour. You wonder why Crimea would vote to join Russia, well that is why. They want the good times back. They want jobs, they want investment, they want a future.
Ukraine is a country run by nutjobs that could compete in the Nutty Olympics with Donald Trump they have had something like 13 different people as leader of their country in 16 years (I can't be arsed checking). One of those leaders proclaimed a few years ago that Only Ukrainian would be recognized in the Ukraine and planned to remove all Russian language from Ukraine. Some areas of Ukraine are over 80% Russian. These are areas that have not historically been Ukrainian or border on historical Ukraine. Regardless though, the minority language must be recognized according to the EU. the proportion does not have to be anywhere near 80% before public buildings and street signs in the region have also have to be in the minority language. I remember this being an issue in the east of Croatia where they had to recognize Serbian before Croatia could get EU membership.
Besides all of this though, the issue is that I and many others have written more this Eurovision about politics than the fucking songs. That is a problem for a non-political song contest