Russia began participating in Eurovision since 1994. The pioneer in this was the singer named Maria Katz, having taken the pseudonym Youddiph. She was very memorable to all due to her original costume and beautiful live performance. However, she has been rated only 9th, which is still good enough when you try first time. Many may wonder how Masha’s career is going after taking part in such a prestigious contest. Pretty good, in fact: she was awarded at home many times (“Lady Blues”, “The Voice of Russia”). She was working as back-vocalist of famous artists, currently participates in “The Voice” project and even opened a recording studio. Maria is also often heard in dubbing of children’s cartoons.
Unfortunately, the 90s were not particularly successful for Russia as a participant of Eurovision. It was simply a series of failures: Philipp Kirkorov, which was sent there having no preparations; Andrey Kosinski, whose talented song has not passed through the additional selection; Alla Pugachiova, whose performance had been considered too pathetic. Then Russia has been deprived the rights of participation for two years.

Considering all the mistakes of the past and the successful experience of the foreign performers, Russia in 2000 takes an approach to be more responsible to the preparation of its contestant for Eurovision. Alsou was chosen, and experienced designers were used in the organization of her stage show, as well as arrangers and authors. Much attention was also paid to the dance and back vocal. The result was a 2nd place, which has become a real breakthrough for Russia at this contest.
After reaching such a high result at Eurovision, singer managed to release the album «Alsou» in English. A CD with it was released in more than 7 countries. Career of Alsou went up rapidly and she has released several more solo albums. Three times she has won “Golden Gramophone” prize. Even acted in some movies. Today she is broadly known singer and happy mother of 2 cute daughters.
Quite popular artists were sent to the Eurovision in subsequent years: “Mummy Troll”, “Prime Minister”, “t.A.T.u. “, Yulia Savicheva, and Natalia Podolskaya. However, their shows did not make the desired effect at European audience.
True success has been brought to Russia at Eurovision by Dima Bilan. He went there twice, in 2006 & 2 years later, bringing the country long-awaited victory. His career evolved quite rapidly before that, and received a new round after participation – he was invited to various international projects and gave prestigious awards (e.g., MTV Europe Music Awards). Between performances of Bilan, in 2007 Russia was represented by the project of MaximFadeev named “Serebro”, which took 3rd place and had good commercial success both in domestic show business and also abroad. Their song “Mama Luba” did not descend from the top of charts of the largest European countries long after. The girls were on promo tours in Italy, Spain, France. They have been on TV and radio. Their English album became platinum in Italy at the number of sales. Members of the group performed a duo with popular Dutch band Yellow Claw, been in Mexico and Japan with tours.

After Russia’s victory in the contest, it had entered performers, whose fame not yet had time to grow. Past years shown sending of the “big stars” is rather dubious decision. The best way is to give a road to new voices. And some of these contestants actually achieved considerable success. Nice try to win the European audience was the performance of Petr Nalitch, whose video for the song named “Guitar” gained much fame in RU.net as of 2007. However, at the Eurovision he was ranked only 11th. But Peter did not fall into despair. He released 4 more albums after the contest. Began to try himself as an actor of Studio Theatre of Gnesins. Alexey Vorobyov had conquered the Eurovision after Nalitch, but his performance has ranked Russia even further below – to the 16th place.
Buranovskie babushki have been remembered around the world, who struck all with their Udmurt’ colouring. This brought them on the second place. And in the semifinals they had full chances of winning. What is the life of grannies after the contest? Back home, in Udmurt Republic, they immediately possessed the People’s Artists pedestal. In 2012, when they carried most fame, the band was actively participating in commercials. They also had projects with well-known performers. However, in 2014, “Buranovskie babushki” went through changes. Producers haven’t renewed the expired contracts and all members were fired. New members were hired to replace the previous line-up and now that name belongs to the very different performers. The old line-up is still doing occasional local performances under name “Babushki iz Buranovo”.
After grannies, Russia was represented at the Eurovision with Dina Garipova, who managed to win the 5th place. Immediately after participating in ESC, she has released the debut record and went to tour on Russian cities.Dina married in 2015. Today she is an actor of Musical Theatre of Gradsky.
In 2014, the European audience was pleased by spectacular twins, Tolmachevy sisters. However, not everyone knows that this is not their first appearance at the famous contest. The girls had previously participated in a children’s version of Eurovision and even won it. Sisters were seriously prepared for an adult competition. They had to make their English better, hard to study singing, carefully keep nice fit. As a result, Masha and Nastya gained seventh place, although initially they were intended for a much better result. Despite this, the public accepted the twins warm enough. Their song «Shine» was memorable to listeners, as the bright images of girls.
However, after some time after the competition it was almost nothing heard of girls. The first time they made several tours in Russia. But today’s interest to girls fell. Someone name them as one-hit wonders, someone predicts the superfast rise of careers and they are simply gaining strength for that. Sisters repeatedly informed us about plans to storm the Eurovision again to win. Life will show.
Polina Gagarina took all the attention at the competition in 2015. She managed to gain the second place. After Eurovision Polina stopped the contract with her manager Konstantin Meladze. She shifted herself to the project called “The Voice”, where she took the role of a mentor. It was another pleasant surprise in Sept. of same year, GQ magazine named her Woman of the Year.

From the artists represented here over the past 10 years, it is impossible to forget about Alexander Rybak. Norwegian of Belorussian origin won the audience with virtuoso violin playing and rhythmic song. He participated in the “Slavic Bazaar” festival after Eurovision, performed on Concert for Nobel Prize in Oslo, acted as honorable guest at many events and has published 4 albums. He acted in some motion pictures and videos.
Many wonder whether there is life after Eurovision for young and not so famous artists. Or they are gradually forgotten after a year or whatever? The answer is different. Circumstances vary. In any case, this competition allow viewers discovering new bright names and sonorous voices!