ANDRE IS THE EIGHTH: FRIENDSHIP WON

Lragir.am
21 May 06

The final of Eurovision took place in Athens. On first participation,
Andre, Armenia, got 129 points and took the eighth place. The rock
band from Finland won, and next year the song contest will be held in
Finland. Russia was the second, Bosnia & Herzegovina was the third.

Romania, Belgium, Lithuania, Cyprus, Netherlands, Ukraine, Russia,
Poland, France, Belarus, Germany, Spain, Moldova, Israel, Greece,
Bulgaria and Turkey gave points to Andre. Belgium and Russia have 12
points. For its part, Armenia gave 12 points to the Russian singer
Dima Bilan.

The Eurovision vote resembled a `regional cooperation’ and certain
tendencies could be figured out. First, one could feel the solidarity
of neighboring countries to vote for one another. For instance, the
Balkan states, Scandinavia, Northern Europe, the Baltic States and the
three Slavonic states ` exchanged’ the highest points. The next
important peculiarity is that these courtiers usually have political
problems, such as the Baltic States with Russia, the former
Yugoslavian countries with one another, and such a vote was intended
to mollify political confrontations. In this context, Turkey did give
a surprise to the Armenians, giving 10 points to Andre.