THE BALANCE of power in the Eurovision Song Contest shifted further eastward on Saturday night with Dima Bilan's decisive victory for Russia reigniting debates about neighbourly bloc voting.
Bilan's power ballad Believeearned 272 votes, trailed by Ukraine's Ani Lorak with 230 votes and Greece's Kalomira with 218 votes. This was the second time that Bilan, a major star in eastern Europe, entered Eurovision; he was second in 2006, pipped to the post by the Finnish monster rockers Lordi.
For the second year running, the European Broadcasting Union, which produces the contest, has organised a victory tour for the winner; the eight-city tour will visit Dublin on May 30th.
Ireland's entry Irlande Douze Points, sung by Dustin the Turkey, did not feature in the final, having been knocked out in Tuesday's qualifier. Voting statistics released on Saturday night showed Ireland finished a respectable 15th out of 24 songs in its round.
Russia had been tipped to win by bookmakers, but the feeling among the western European-dominated fan and media corps was that Bilan's victory may have been more bought than earned. The Russian delegation had clearly poured enormous resources into Bilan's stage show, which featured a mimed performance on a Stradivarius violin and a skating routine by Olympic and world champion Evgeny Plushenko.
Bilan is a talented and charismatic singer, but the song, despite high-quality production by American rapper Timbaland, is musically undistinguished.
Six of the seven countries that gave Believetheir top 12 point score were former Soviet republics, fuelling accusations that those points were being allocated because of political affiliations.
The BBC's Terry Wogan was characteristically caustic on the subject on Saturday night, commenting that "the word had gone out" that it was "Russia's turn this year", a conspiracy theory that would be difficult to sustain factually, but which sums up the point of view of many on voting since the contest expanded to include former Soviet and other central and eastern European countries in the early 1990s.
Studies have indicated, however, that what we now refer to as bloc voting has been evident in Eurovision from its earliest day. The overall geographical spread of countries finishing in this year's top 10 was wide by recent standards, including five former Soviet republics, two Balkan nations, three Mediterranean countries, and one Nordic country.
UK singer Andy Abraham finished in joint last position (alongside Germany and Poland) despite a polished performance.