Tonight, the host country of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest, Russia, will choose its song and singer of Moscow. 16 acts will compete to follow in the footsteps of Dima Bilan.

The show

The show to be broadcast on Channel One ill start at 18:00 CET and it will last until 21:20 CET. There will be two breaks: Between 19:00 CET and 19:20 CET, a news programme will be shown and from 20:30 to 21:00, a comedy programme will be aired. 16 acts will present once song each and there will be two rounds of voting. In the first round televoting will select the top three and in the second round, the winner winner will be chosen by a jury. Many former Russian entrants will appear in the show as guest stars: Youddiph (1994), Alsou (2000), Prime Minister (2002), Julia Savicheva (2004), Natalia Podolskaya (2005),Dima Bilan (2006, 2008) and Serebro (2007). Furthermore, Jade Ewen will present her UK entry It's my time.

Webcast

A webcast is available here.

Participants

Venger Collective, Quatro and Tim Rocks will have to change their entries as those were published before 1st October.

1. Anastasiya Prikhodko – Mama
2. Alexa – Ne dumat o tebe
3. Arishata – Breakdown
4. Valeriya – Back to love
5. Alexey Vorobyov – Heart hunting
6. Venger Collective
7. Polina Griffiths – Cry for you
8. Quatro
9. Thomas Christiansen – One more try
10. Princess Avenue – Never, never…
11. Tim Rocks
12. Anna Semenovich – Love lovila
13. Nikolay Fokeyev – You can stop the time
14. Plazma – Neverending story
15. Nano – Traitor
16. Unisex – Ai-ai-ai

In 2008, Russia was represented by Dima Bilan, who finished third in the first semi final and first in the final with his song Believe. As winning country of 2008 and host countryof 2009, the country is directly qualified for the final of the contest this year on 16th May.

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