#BestOfJESC – Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2009

Today, we look back on the seventh edition of Junior Eurovision!

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2009 was held in the “Kyiv Sports Palace” of Kiev, Ukraine, on November 21.

THE PARTICIPANTS:

1. Sweden: Mimmi Sandén – Du
2. Russia: Ekaterina Ryabova – Malenky Prints
3. Armenia: Luara Hayrapetyan – Barcelona
4. Romania: Ioana Anuţa – Ai Puterea în Mâna Ta
5. Serbia: Ništa Lično – Onaj Pravi
6. Georgia: Group Princesses – Blue Bird
7. The Netherlands: Ralf Mackenbach – Click Clack
8. Cyprus: Rafaella Costa – Thalassa, Helios, Aeras, Fotia
9. Malta: Francesca & Mikaela – Double Trouble
10. Ukraine: Andranik Aleksanyan – Try Topoli, Try Surmy
11. Belgium: Laura – Zo Verliefd (Yodelo)
12. Belarus: Yury Demidovich – Volshebnyi Krolik
13. F.Y.R. Macedonia: Sara Markoska – Za Ljubovta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HRxFcowdUU

INTERESTING FACTS:

• The hosts were Ani Lorak and Timur Miroshnichenko with Dima Borodin hosting from the Green Room. Dima is also the 2nd of only 2 hosts who were young enough to compete. The interval acts were Ani Lorak, Yuri Kuzynskyi and Karyna Rudnyc’k, and Art studio “Rizoma”.
• Greece, Bulgaria, and Lithuania withdrew for this edition, with Sweden returning to the competition after a break of one year.
• Ekaterina Ryabova, who represented Russia, and Luara Hayruapetyan, who represented Armenia, both finished with 116 points, tieing for 2nd place, the highest position of a tie so far (using the Eurovision tie-break rules results in Luara taking 2nd spot and Ekaterina, 3rd spot).
• Sweden were represented by Mimmi Sandén, the youngest of the 3 Sandén sisters, all of which represented Sweden (Molly in 2006 and Frida in 2007). Mimmi also sang backing vocals, along with Frida, for Molly in the 2006 JESC.
• In 2011 Ekaterina Ryabova from Russia became the 1st artist to compete twice in JESC as a main artist.
• Luara Hayruapetyan from Armenia was the 1st artist to participate in the National selections of 2 different countries. Having been born in Russia Luara came 2nd in 2006 in the Russian final and she also came 3rd in the 2008 selection for Armenia before winning the right to represent Armenia in 2009.
• Lizi Ramishvili, the cellist with Georgian Group Princesses, became the first person to compete in both JESC and Eurovision Young Musicians (EYM) when she represented Georgia in the 2012 edition of EYM.
• The Netherlands were represented by Ralf Mackenbach with the first winning song that contains English lyrics. Although the song only contains one line in English, it also contains International words (words that are the same in many different languages) and words that are common between English and Dutch, which made it seem like it contains more English than it really does.
• Malta was represented by Francesca & Mikaela who are still the only JESC contestants from the Maltese island of Gozo.

Steph Parker