Violin, Ice Rink, Victory

MAY 15 2008 · 12:15

Dima Bilan · "Believe" · Russia · 2008 Placement: 1st · Language: English · Composers: Jim Beanz, Dima Bilan · Venue: Belgrade Arena · Host: Belgrade, Serbia · Type: winner · Broadcast: HD On May 24, 2008, at the Belgrade Arena, Dima Bilan returned to Eurovision for a second try, having finished second for Russia in 2006, and brought with him a staging concept of self-consciously Olympic-tier scale. 'Believe' was a mid-tempo English-language power ballad, co-written and produced with international collaborators including Jim Beanz, and the staging surrounding it was built around two imported stars: the Hungarian-Romanian virtuoso violinist Edvin Marton, playing a Stradivarius on a small raised platform, and the Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko, performing short skating figures on a miniature patch of real ice installed on the Eurovision stage. Bilan himself, barefoot and in a white shirt, moved between them, pushing vocally into the high register on the chorus and dropping to his knees for the final bridge. The combination was unprecedented at Eurovision — a live Olympic gold-medal skater, a world-class classical soloist, a pop singer, all sharing three minutes — and it read, unmistakably, as a Russian statement of cultural force. The televote, along with the newly reintroduced jury component, broke decisively in Russia's favour, and Bilan's win gave the country its first-ever Eurovision victory. Context Eurovision 2008 was hosted in Belgrade following Serbia's 2007 win, and its broader political context was charged. Kosovo had declared independence from Serbia in February 2008; Dmitry Medvedev had just succeeded Vladimir Putin as Russian president in May, with Putin transitioning to the prime ministership. Tensions between Russia and Western Europe were rising, and would escalate dramatically later that year with the August war in Georgia. Russian soft power was then being deployed at significant scale, and Eurovision was explicitly part of that projection. Bilan's 2006 second-place finish with 'Never Let You Go' had already demonstrated that Russia was investing in high-quality Eurovision production; 'Believe' was the culmination of that effort. The contest itself was expanding its semi-final system to two semi-finals for the first time, acknowledging the sustained increase in participating countries. Legacy Russia's 2009 hosting in Moscow became one of the most visibly expensive Eurovisions of the era, reportedly one of the costliest in the contest's history, and served as a global television showcase for the country on the eve of the subsequent decade's political ruptures. Bilan himself remained a major Russian pop star. 'Believe' became a reference point in Eurovision staging history for its integration of non-musical live performers — the violinist and the skater — into a pop vocal number, a template later echoed by various entries seeking a similar cross-disciplinary spectacle. In hindsight, the win is often read as the high-water mark of Russian participation in Eurovision, before the political breaks of 2014, 2017 and ultimately 2022. Mythology It is sometimes claimed that the ice on stage was artificial; contemporary reports describe it as a small patch of real ice, installed specifically for Plushenko's figures. Bilan is also sometimes remembered as a debutant in 2008; he had already finished second with a different song in 2006.