Yuliya Samoilova has just been announced as the Russian representative as this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Kiev with the song “Flame is Burning“. Russian public TV station Channel One has presented her on news program Vremya.
Flame Is Burning has been written by the same person behind Dina Garipova and Polina Gagarina’s entries Leonid Gutkin alongside Natty Nimrodi and Arye Burstein. Head of Delegation Yuriy Aksyuta defined Julia as a charming, authentic and experienced performer and hopes that the audience will share the feeling and message of the song on the 11th of May, when she will be performing in the second semifinal.
You can listen to her song below:
The song and singer leading the colours of the Russian flag in May have been internally selected by the broadcaster following the past few internal selections, as the method appointed to pick the Russian representation in Eurovision for a few years now, as it happened with Dina Garipova, Tolmachevy Sisters, Polina Gagarina or Sergey Lazarev.
Singer, composer and music writer. Julia Samoilova was born April, 7 1989 in Ukhta, Russia. She has won several music contests in Russia and abroad to date and was a finalist of The X Factor in Russia (Golos). Samoilova also won Alla Pugacheva’s Golden Star Award and starred on at the Opening Ceremony of Winter Paralympics 2014 in Sochi performing the song “Together”.
Right after last year’s Eurovision Song Contest finished in Stockholm, the Russian Government questioned themselves if it was right for the country to send an act over to Kiev this year due to political reasons between both nations. Today, there still are some speculations going on about it but everything seems to have turned out to green.
Apart from this controversial situation, several artists were rumored at the beginning of February to be the one that would go to represent Russia on the 11th of May at the 2nd semi-final, such as The Voice of Russia participant Alexander Panayotov itself, ex-Serebro member Elena Temnikova, The Voice of Russia Season 5th Winner Daria Antonyuk, Russian 2016 Eurovision spokesperson Nyusha or girlband Soprano Turetskogo.