Lev Zemlinski - Russion entry at the Eurovision song contect, Dublin, 1994

"Eternal Wanderer"

336kB

In 1994, after 20 years of ignorance, Russian TV officials make decision to participate in the Eurovision Song Contest, popular annual TV show, held by European TV Committee - Eurovision. Really, it was the first and the last national open contest, where various artists and authors could compete with each other (following national elimination contests were a kind of fiction, as all winners were chosen beforehand). Young singer Maria Katz (Youddiph) and Lev Zemlinski as a songwriter won this competition.

According to the Eurovision rules, song was accompanied by big orchestra of Irish TV. Every participant had only two rehearsals with the orchestra, about 40 minutes each. The situation was not so easy, regarding the fact that Russian participants couldn't hear the orchestral arrangement (made by the author) before they arrived to Dublin. The reason was simple - Russian national contest was held with singers singing on "minus" tracks. However, most other countries used live orchestras and songwriters could at least check out arrangements of the songs.

Nevertheless, Russian song had a good response from a Point Theatre audience of over 3000 and a television audience of over 300 million, bringing Russians 9th place and this was not the end of the story. The CD "Eternal wanderer" was sold in Great Britain after the contest. And in 1999 British Eurovision fans voted for "Eternal wanderer" as one of the "top ten" songs for all Eurovision history.