Marija Serifovic

“Conspiracy! Downfall of the occident! The West has been tricked by the Balkan. Tut! The Europeans got what they deserved: Applause for the East and a cold shower for the rest!” stated newspaper spiegel.de last Sunday morning.

Serbia (268 points) won the Eurovision song contest, in front of the Ukraine (235) and Russia (207). 22 year old Serb Marija Serifovic wooed the voters of the 52th Eurovision Song Contest with her touching ballad "Molitva."  Second place was taken by Verka Serduchka, and third place by Russian trio Serebro. 
 

YLE aired quite a show on Saturday evening. Live from Helsinki, thousands of people cheered outside and inside the Hartwall arena where Jaana Pelkonen and Mikko Leppilampi were presenting. 

Although most of us found our own country’s song dreadful and quite embarrassing, a group of us met up to watch the contest and vote for our favourites. A Belgium, two Turkish, a Norwegian, an Irish, a Finn and a German made quite an interesting mixture, and the assumptions as to who might win were quite diverse. Some favoured their own country, although questionable if the song actually showed some quality; others just favoured good music and singers; the rest went for a little craziness and amusement.

There was definitely something for everyone: Ukrainian transvestites covered in what looked liked aluminium foil suits, kinky Russian schoolgirls, a Swedish David Bowie impersonator and some pink-suited, difficult to understand French. Those were certainly the most attention-grabbing. There was pop, operaesque, rock, jazz and modern, and not-really-fitting-into-any-category music.

When Santa Claus chimed the bell to start the voting, all of us hastened to type the correct numbers into our ready positioned and easy-to-reach cellphones.

The show offered much more than participant performances. The opening song was no less than “Hardrock Halleluja,” performed by Lordi themselves. While the voting was going on, heavy metal celloists Apocalyptica and a modern ballet performance were shown on stage. And in between songs, the show was spiced up by little clips on typical Finnish habits.

“It’s art!” exclaimed Doruk Kaner from Turkey. When showed a group of goths or two half naked Finns jumping into an icehole to take a swim, Caner Pisgin (also from Turkey) worried that his mom might call to ask is that really typical Finland, and where have you ended up? Most agreed that ice sculpture, ice-hole swimming, crosscountry skiing, swamp-soccer,  and cellphones are activities you automatically connect with Finland when you’ve lived here for a while.

Catchy and amusing was Krisse in her pink Barbie dress with her tangy comments and funny questions to the participants. Krisse is popular all over Finland with her own show, “Krisse Show,” on Finnish TV channel Nelonen.

When the decision was made and Marija Serifovic (“alias Kelly Osbourne,” according to the moderator from the Netherlands) had undoubtly won, we could not decide if it was fair. “There were so many eastern countries that it was already obvious from the beginning that one of them would win. They vote for each other”, said a friend from Germany. “You can’t deny the contest has a political side.”

Online, opinions differ also. On Eurovision website esctoday.com, some thought it a shame that the last places are all western countries and the better places all taken up by eastern countries. Others stated that the best won, and that hopefully this will bring back quality to the contest, meaning no more crazy performances and fewer transvestites.

In the end we agreed that every year, every country gives most of its points to a neighbouring country or countries or a potential ally. Many of the westerners couldn’t deny it gave them a weird feeling to see all the eastern countries unite like that, although it certainly is only a songcontest, isnt it?

Those who can’t get enough of Marija Serifovic can now follow her on her promotional tour. This year, the Eurovision winner will tour six European countries between the fifteenth and twenty-first of May.

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