Banished from Eurovision, Russia will launch the ultimate of its personal worldwide song contest at President Vladimir Putin’s behest on Saturday, with a Soviet-era identify and acts meant to advertise “traditional family values.”
Singers at “Intervision” will hail from 23 international locations accounting for greater than half the world’s inhabitants, together with China, India and Brazil, and compete for a money prize of 30 million roubles ($360,000).
Russia has been excluded from the Eurovision song contest since Putin ordered tens of hundreds of troops into Ukraine in 2022. This 12 months, Putin introduced his rival contest, with a high Kremlin aide named to go the supervisory board. Kyiv has referred to as the occasion “an instrument of hostile propaganda.”
The present can be broadcast reside on Russian tv. The Russian organizers say it is going to even be out there both over the web or on TV in different international locations with a mixed inhabitants of greater than 4 billion individuals, though they haven’t launched a listing of international broadcasters that plan to hold it.
Songs could be carried out in any language. Knowledgeable jury of representatives from every nation will resolve the end result, slightly than the viewing public.
Intervision revives the identify of a music contest that Moscow used to stage within the Soviet period with its Eastern European satellite tv for pc states. The new model will function acts from international locations Russia now considers pleasant, together with Belarus, Cuba, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, the UAE and Venezuela.
Serbia is the one nation to participate in each Eurovision and Intervision. The United States can even be represented, by an Australian-born artist referred to as “Vassy,” after U.S.-born R&B singer Brandon Howard dropped out on the final minute citing household causes.
In distinction to Eurovision’s famed kitsch, Intervision’s Russian organizers say they propound “traditional, universal and family values.”
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov instructed a pre-contest information convention that Moscow had not banned Russians from watching Eurovision, however felt there was room too for what he referred to as “alternative approaches to preserving traditions and national cultures, as well as religious, spiritual and moral constructs that we have inherited from our ancestors.”
“If this enjoys great demand, that only makes (us) happy. But we do not dispute the right of the jury or Eurovision viewers to vote for a bearded man in a dress,” he mentioned, an obvious reference to Eurovision’s 2014 winner, Austrian drag queen Conchita Wurst.
In Russia, stringent guidelines ban any actions deemed to advertise homosexuality, and “the international LGBT public movement” is branded an extremist group.
Russia took half in Eurovision 23 occasions from 1994 and received it in 2008 with the song “Believe” by Dima Bilan.
Moscow can be represented at Intervision by “Shaman,” whose actual identify is Yaroslav Dronov, with a Russian-language song referred to as “Straight to the Heart.”
Dronov, who as soon as simulated detonating a nuclear bomb on stage, has ridden a wave of war-fueled patriotism with songs similar to “I am Russian” to change into a staple on Russian state TV.