Dima wins Eurovision – Moscow doesn’t believe in tears

Dima Bilan, Russian performer in Eurovision Song Contest 2008 became the first, and next Eurovision contest will be held in Moscow. Moscow doesn’t believe in tears. So, congratulations to Russia, and especially thanks because of their 10 points given to us, Azerbaijan. It was not a surprise that Russia was going to win, and I just recalled one comment by one Azeri composer saying that with Bilan having Evgeni Plushenko and Edvin Marton performing alongside him, it is very strange why George W. Bush doesn’t sing the back-vocals.

If Bilan’s victory wasn’t really a surprise for many, but Hungary’s 12 points (the top score) for Azerbaijan came really as a surprise to me. Hungary was the only other country than Turkey voting 12 points for us. I remembered one Azeri poet who wrote in the beginning of XX century:

You, Hungarian people, are our brothers,
Our ancestors came both from Turan
We have the same faith, are adherents of the truth,
Is it possible that Bible and Koran can separate us?

Azerbaijan, receiving varying votes from 21 of 43 countries, came 8th among European nations participating in ESC 2008, and thanks to every voter who contributed to this our success. Well, I think we shouldn’t be disappointed, because the most realist prognosis regarding our song was to be among top 10, and it became true!

Elnur & Samir (photo from Wikipedia)

I just noticed that we did very bad in classic catholic countries, except Belgium, Poland and Andorra, that is we got no votes from France, Spain, Portugal, San-Marino, Ireland. I wonder whether it is related to Elnur’s being an angel, and Samir being a devil. Did it hurt their religiosity? And also we got little vote across Western Europe, and only 5 out of 21 countries voting for us is Western European. But our top voters being Eastern Europe +Turkey, we did well in Eastern Europe, as Hungary gave their top score to us, and in Czech Republic, Russia and Ukraine we came second. Israel and Greece voted for us 3 point each, as we expected more from the former, and almost none from the latter.

And these are the countries who voted for us. Thanks to them all, and to ALL VOTERS who sent an SMS with “20”! And especially thanks to Turkey!

Hungary 12
Turkey 12
Czech Rep 10
Russia 10
Ukraine 10
Byelorussia 8
FYR Macedonia 8
Moldova 8
Andorra 7
Belgium 7
Georgia 7
Lithuania 7
Poland 7
Latvia 4
Bulgaria 3
Greece 3
Israel 3
Netherlands 2
Romania 2
Germany 1
Slovenia 1

P.S. It seemed that Elnur could at last cope with the excitement, but Samir was again very much exited and it prevented him from singing better.