Eurovision: Seventh-place finish for Armenia in German-dominated final
Arts and Culture | 30.05.10 | 11:47
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By Suren Musayelyan
ArmeniaNow Deputy Editor
Armenia finished seventh in the 25-nation Eurovision final on its
fifth appearance in Europe’s biggest pop music contest on Saturday.
The winner of one of the world’s most-watched events on television
this year was betting agencies’ favorite Lena Meyer-Lundrut from
Germany with her catchy pop song `Satellite’. The 19-year-old from
Hanover earned 246 points in a combined vote by viewers and national
juries in 39 countries.
Turkish rock band maNga (170 points) and Romania’s duet of Paula
Seling and Ovi (162 points) finished second and third, respectively,
at the Grand Finale in Oslo, Norway.
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Lena Meyer-LundrutEva Rivas representing Armenia finished in the
seventh position with 141 points. The 22-year-old native of
Rostov-na-Donu in southern Russia provided the country’s arguably best
executed entry so far with her upbeat `Apricot Stone’ song about
nostalgia for Motherland symbolized by an apricot pit. The
three-minute show also featuring Armenian duduk maestro Jivan
Gasparyan was warmly greeted by the Telenor Arena audience of some
18,000.
Numerous Armenian fans, meanwhile, had gathered around a small
man-made pond in central Yerevan, Karapi Lich, for a live big screen
watching of the show that ended only at around 3.15 am Yerevan time.
(The Eurovision finals had been watched live by an estimated 120
million TV viewers in some 45 countries).
Armenia’s entry was only four points short of Azerbaijan’s
representative Safura who finished in the fifth place with her song,
`Drip Drop’.
In the televoting by 39 countries Armenia’s highest points, 12, came
from Russia, the Netherlands and Israel. Georgia gave Armenia 10
points, while Spain and Bulgaria provided 8 points each. The other
countries that supported Armenia were: Germany, Greece, Cyprus,
Belgium (all 7 points); Romania, Turkey, France, Ukraine, Moldova (6
points); Poland, Belarus (5 points); Slovakia, FYR Macedonia (4
points); Serbia, Latvia, Sweden (1 point).
(Armenia’s entry in Eurovision 2009 got only one 12-pointer, from
Czechs, and took the 10th place. The best result for Armenia so far
was provided by singer Sirusho who finished just outside the top three
in 2008).
Meanwhile, Armenia this year gave its 12 points to Georgia, 10 points
to Russia and 8 points to Ukraine.
The Oslo contest did not pass without some off-stage bickering between
Armenia and Azerbaijan reflecting the standoff between the two South
Caucasus neighbors in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute.
In particular, after the semifinal featuring representatives of both
countries, Baku protested the exclusion by the organizers of
Nagorno-Karabakh and `other occupied territories’ from the map of
Azerbaijan demonstrated before the performance of the Azeri singer.
Baku still considers the de-facto independent Armenian republic to be
a part of its territory. Also, the Azeri delegation protested the
presence of a Karabakh flag in the Telenor Arena in Oslo during the
Thursday semifinal. The security in the arena reportedly did not meet
the Azeri requests to remove the flag, reasoning that they were not
intervening in `political affairs.’
More information and results from this year’s song contest in Olso are
available on Eurovision’s official website
From: A. Papazian