Six grannies from the "Buranovskiye Babushki" band won the Russian national contest to have the honor of representing Russia at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in Azerbaijan on May 22-26.
The sextet of babushkas faced a tough competition in the final selection from 24 more Russian contenders, including 2008 Eurovision winner Dima Bilan, but in the end they won the hearts of jurors and TV viewers by performing ‘Party for Everybody’ in Udmurt language.
The colorful grannies, with some of them over 70 years old of age, do not speak English and their folk style performance includes own songs and covers of many international music hits. They mostly sing in Russian and Udmurt.
The Buranovskiye Babushki band comes from the village of Buranovo in the Urals republic of Udmurtia. The band first tried for the Eurovision contest in 2010, but lost in the selection round.
The Russian grannies will not be lonely among traditionally young European contenders at the Eurovision, as Britain earlier announced that it decided to send to Azerbaijan famous Engelbert Humperdinck, who turns 76 in May and whose latest hit was almost 40 years ago.
A total of 42 countries will participate at the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in the Azeri capital, Baku.
All rights reserved by Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
