If you open your eyes — and more importantly your ears — you’ll soon realize that Eurovision is everywhere, from Hollywood blockbusters to the MTV Music Awards to X Factor. The latest connection comes from the FIFA World Cup 2018 allocation draw in Saint Petersburg’s Konstantin Palace. The July 25 event featured a number of familiar Eurovision faces including Eurovision 2015 singer Polina Gagarina!
Natalia Vodianova, international supermodel and one of the ESC 2009 semifinal hosts, hosted the FIFA draw along with Dmitry Shepelev, Russia’s Eurovision voting spokesperson (12 points from Russia go to… Russia!).
Natalia dressed patriotically during the ceremony, as she had a set of three dresses from Russian designer Ulyana Sergeenko – the same man who dressed the Tolmachevy Sisters for their performance at Eurovision 2014. The colors of Natalia’s dresses were white, blue and red – symbolyzing the Russian flag.
Dmitry put on a brave face: his wife, Russian singer Zhanna Friske, died of cancer last month, just a few months after giving birth.
Polina Gagarina: Fifa World Cup Draw performance
The closing act was, of course, Polina Gagarina who sought to keep the #buildingbridges theme from Vienna going among the countries participating in the World Cup. She sang ‘A Million Voices‘ for the millionth time in Russia — and in the same dress, with the same hairstyle and with the same soulful emotions.
But this time she sang with a choir of kids. The number of children singing corresponded with the number of FIFA World Cup countries, with each kid wearing a T-shirt with the flag of the country they represented. Touching!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhKj5M6Z3BA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y69pGjII_J4
You guys know that Ulyana Sergeenko is a woman, right?
Poor Dimitri, that is truly one of the most tragic situation I’ve ever heard 🙁
great vocalist and you make her lipsync? really?
Who was the creepy guy?
Rusia y la Fifa,negocios turbios
SO GLAM
I don’t like the dress 🙁 I wish she’d worn something different, like what she wore to Muz TV Awards or something x_x
On an unrelated note (sorry), Il Volo released a Spanish version of “Grande Amore”. I’m not sure how long ago this was (like a week??), but I would have though wiwibloggs would have covered it by now.
A Million Voices? A Million people is not that many in the grand scheme of things. The lyric would mean much more it it was A BILLION Voices. Also Dmitry is adorable, so sad about his wife.
Well the worst is over now i want to believe.. Russia just because doesn’t want to lose the bid to host the World Cup won’t gonna vote any more harsh measures anti gay laws against gays & homosexuality.. I want to believe that gays mainly won’t be in danger to get hurt because the public eye of the planet IS centered towards Russia now.. They will try to be more careful so to not witness their country’s image getting affected more to the western world.. Who knows…Maybe they will decide to even drop their homophobic anti gay laws till 2018… Read more »
Really sad that Dmitry Shepelev lost his wife last month over cancer..
And during presenting Russia’s voting points he was already aware about his wife’s terminal cancer & that he would lose her..
His wife was pregnant when she found out that she had brain tumor cancer but she decided to NOT do chemotherapy in order to save her unborn son..
In April she gave a birth to a boy..
She was only 40 years old…So much young..
Oh..I was about to watch the video but since its not live but lipsync i won’t bother..
Yeah…She could had better choose to sing her visionary song LIVE instead..
She has great voice & with all these practice she has done she would had performed it fine..
JMH, it’s condition of organizers at the concert. they didn’t put live sound in the hall.
An interesting fact that i just noticed is that in our own H #8 group
that my country has drawn in that it is the #1 group with the most finalists countries that qualified & were present on the final of Vienna’s Vision! <3 🙂
My country Greece,Cyprus,Estonia & Belgium ALL qualified from the SF!
Bosnia sadly did not participate on this year's Vision..
1 or 2 other groups have also 4 finalists countries BUT they had either 6 teams in their group instead of 5 of our group & they one of them was big5 automatic finalist country..
Did she have to lipsync? We all know that she can sing very well. However, she’s not that great at lipsyncing…
It is really hard to hate Russia
Oh with this wiwi article,i was just informed that my country Greece will be on the quyalifying #8 group H.. We will gonna face the teams of : Belgium,Bosnia,Cyprus & Estonia.. Well i do not think that we will manage to qualify to the World Cup of Russia though.. The teams that i predict that they will gonna qualify are Bosnia & Belgium.. Even Cyprus is expected to finish higher than us.. I hope that we will not finish last 5th on our group though.. Like im afraid that this scenario will happen in our qualifying group for the Euro… Read more »
and she decided to lip-sync…
I love her! 🙂