Mikhail Smirnov will represent Russia at the Junior Eurovision!
On Friday night, Russia held a national final to choose the artist that would represent the country in the JESC 2015. Out of 18 acts, Mikhail Smirnov, a 12 year old boy, stood out and won the contest. He was the only male performer of the contest. His song is called Мечта, which can by translated by “dream”.
The Russian artist that would represent the country at the Junior Eurovision 2015 was chosen by an online-voting system (50%), before the show, and by a professional jury, during the show (50%). Mikhail Smirnov finished 2nd in the online-voting, accumulating more than 8000 votes. During the show, 7 juries had a saying in the final result. Among them, we could find Phillip Kirikov, Alisa Kozhikina, who represented Russia at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2014, and Julia Savicheva.
At the beginning of the show, the 18 acts sang a song together. Then, the executive supervisor of the JESC, Vladislav Yakovlev, gave a little speech and introduced the jury members.
Mikhail won the contest with a total of 34 points and Maria Mirova, who collected the most votes during the online-voting, finished 2nd, with 31 points. Hikmatullina & Maneshina, a duo, finished in 3rd place, amassing 28 points.
You can watch Mikhail’s performance, live at the national final:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4V8Qg7_YYM