Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2015

It had been rumoured that C1R had internally selected the third season winner of talent show Golos Alexandra Vorobyova after selecting the first season winner of Golos Dina Garipova to represent Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 2013.[3] This was later denied by Vorobyova in an interview with Love Radio in January 2015, however she was interested in the opportunity.[4] Head of the department of music and entertainment of C1R, Yuriy Aksyuta, stated in an interview with Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda in February 2015 that Vorobyova would not be selected as they did not want to repeat themselves by once again sending the winner of Golos.[5][6]

On 9 March 2015, Russian media reported that C1R had internally selected Polina Gagarina to represent Russia in Vienna, which was later confirmed on 11 March 2015 during the C1R news program Vremya.[7][8] In regards to her selection, Gagarina stated: "This is a level-up for me. And I'm happy to represent my country at such a high-ranking international contest."[9] The Russian song, "A Million Voices", was presented to the public on 15 March 2015 through the release of the official music video on YouTube.[10] The music video, directed by Konstantin Cherepkov, features Miss Universe Russia 2015 Vladislava Evtushenko. "You Are the Only One" was written and composed by Gabriel Alares, Joakim Björnberg, Katrina Noorbergen, Leonid Gutkin and Vladimir Matetsky.[11]

This is a song of the world. It is a song of everyone: children, elderly people, pregnant… This song is just about love. Love is the only thing that you should live, breathe, keep working for—this is the only sense of life. And million voices are talking about it.

— Polina Gagarina[10]

Gagarina at a dress rehearsal for the first semi-final

Gagarina took part in technical rehearsals on 12 and 15 May,[17][18] followed by dress rehearsals on 18 and 19 May. This included the jury final where professional juries of each country, responsible for 50 percent of each country's vote, watched and voted on the competing entries.[19]

The stage show featured Gagarina in a long white dress created by designer Alexander Terekhov. Gagarina performed the song with projections of stars on her dress. She was surrounded with her backing vocalists in a band set-up: two guitarists, one drummer and two performers. The background LED screens were kept dark for the start of the song and then transitioned to outer space star patterns culminating in a view of planet Earth.[17][18] On stage, Gagarina was joined by five backing vocalists: Gabriel Alares, Alexandra Belyakova, Alexander Pozdnyakov, Nikita Pozdnyakov and Katrina Noorbergen.[20]

At the end of the show, Russia was announced as having finished in the top ten and subsequently qualifying for the grand final.[21] It was later revealed that Russia won the semi-final, receiving a total of 182 points.[2]

Gagarina during the Eurovision Song Contest opening ceremony

Shortly after the first semi-final, a winner's press conference was held for the ten qualifying countries. As part of this press conference, the qualifying artists took part in a draw to determine which half of the grand final they would subsequently participate in. This draw was done in the order the countries were announced during the semi-final. Russia was drawn to compete in the second half.[22] Following this draw, the shows' producers decided upon the running order of the final, as they had done for the semi-finals. Russia was subsequently placed to perform in position 25, following the entry from Azerbaijan and before the entry from Albania.[23]

Gagarina once again took part in dress rehearsals on 22 and 23 May before the final, including the jury final where the professional juries cast their final votes before the live show.[24] Gagarina performed a repeat of her semi-final performance during the final on 23 May. After leading the voting in its initial stages, Russia eventually finished in second place with 303 points with Sweden and Italy placing first and third respectively. Russia received 12 points, the maximum number of points a country can give to another country, from five countries.[25][26]

Voting during the three shows consisted of 50 percent public televoting and 50 percent from a jury deliberation. The jury consisted of five music industry professionals who were citizens of the country they represent, with their names published before the contest to ensure transparency. This jury was asked to judge each contestant based on: vocal capacity; the stage performance; the song's composition and originality; and the overall impression by the act. In addition, no member of a national jury could be related in any way to any of the competing acts in such a way that they cannot vote impartially and independently. The individual rankings of each jury member were released shortly after the grand final.[27]

Following the release of the full split voting by the EBU after the conclusion of the competition, it was revealed that Russia had placed second with the public televote and third with the jury vote in the final. In the public vote, Russia scored 286 points ending up behind Italy with 366 points and ahead of the eventual winner Sweden, which placed third with 279 points. In the jury vote, Russia placed third with 234 points behind Sweden and Latvia, which occupied the first and second places respectively.[28] In the first semi-final, Russia placed first with the public televote receiving 145 points and first with the jury vote with 159 points.[29]

Below is a breakdown of points awarded to Russia and awarded by Russia in the first semi-final and grand final of the contest, and the breakdown of the jury voting and televoting conducted during the two shows:[2][26][30][31]

The following five members comprised the Russian jury:[27]

• Igor Matvienko – Chairperson – producer, composer
• Alsou Abramova (Alsou) – singer, represented Russia in the 2000 contest (jury member in Semi-Final 1)
• Alexandra Vorobyova – singer (jury member in Final)
• Dina Garipova – singer, journalist, represented Russia in the 2013 contest
• Ljuba Kazarnovskaya – opera singer, professor
• Slava Kulaev – choreographer, director

Split voting results from Russia (Semi-final 1)
Draw	Country	I. Matvienko	Alsou	D. Garipova	L. Kazarnovskaya	S. Kulaev	Average Jury Rank	Televote Rank	Combined Rank	Scoreboard (Points)
01	Moldova	10	14	10	15	15	14	9	11
02	Armenia	9	5	6	4	2	4	1	1	12
03	Belgium	2	1	1	1	1	1	5	3	8
04	Netherlands	4	7	8	10	6	8	15	12
05	Finland	13	15	13	11	13	15	10	14
06	Greece	5	10	5	8	3	6	7	6	5
07	Estonia	1	3	9	2	4	2	4	2	10
08	Macedonia	15	8	7	12	12	11	14	15
09	Serbia	8	13	15	9	9	10	6	7	4
10	Hungary	14	12	3	6	11	9	11	9	2
11	Belarus	3	4	14	5	5	7	2	5	6
12	Russia
13	Denmark	11	9	11	13	10	12	12	13
14	Albania	6	2	4	3	7	3	13	8	3
15	Romania	12	11	12	14	14	13	8	10	1
16	Georgia	7	6	2	7	8	5	3	4	7

Split voting results from Russia (final)
Draw	Country	I. Matvienko	A. Vorobyova	D. Garipova	L. Kazarnovskaya	S. Kulaev	Average Jury Rank	Televote Rank	Combined Rank	Scoreboard (Points)
01	Slovenia	9	26	22	6	21	17	14	13
02	France	24	24	21	7	8	18	25	24
03	Israel	15	21	26	8	22	22	10	14
04	Estonia	3	5	15	9	6	5	4	4	7
05	United Kingdom	14	23	19	10	23	20	24	25
06	Armenia	13	14	10	4	19	9	2	5	6
07	Lithuania	12	12	20	14	24	16	22	22
08	Serbia	11	22	25	24	25	25	9	16
09	Norway	23	19	5	11	12	14	20	17
10	Sweden	1	1	1	2	4	1	5	3	8
11	Cyprus	26	11	13	25	18	23	19	23
12	Australia	4	2	4	15	2	3	12	7	4
13	Belgium	2	4	2	3	1	2	3	2	10
14	Austria	7	18	14	5	5	7	26	15
15	Greece	8	17	11	13	7	8	15	11
16	Montenegro	22	16	24	20	16	24	13	20
17	Germany	16	10	6	21	17	13	21	18
18	Poland	17	13	12	22	20	19	17	19
19	Latvia	10	8	17	12	26	15	6	9	2
20	Romania	25	15	16	23	11	21	16	21
21	Spain	18	7	18	16	10	12	11	10	1
22	Hungary	19	6	7	17	13	10	18	12
23	Georgia	5	9	8	18	9	6	7	6	5
24	Azerbaijan	6	20	9	19	14	11	8	8	3
25	Russia
26	Albania	21	25	23	26	15	26	23	26
27	Italy	20	3	3	1	3	4	1	1	12