Russia’s Polina Gagarina who finished in second place in tonight’s Eurovision Song Contest was seen in tears, upset quite early on as the votes were read. While chatting with last year’s winner Conchita in the Green Room, the ‘A Million Voices’ singer tried to pass off the tears as happy ones, as she couldn’t believe that she was atop the leaderboard at this stage.
In fact the real reason for her tears was that she got boos from the audience every time she received points. This was hidden by the Eurovision broadcasters who employed sound technology to hide the boos as they feel that it is not in the spirit of the competition. I can confirm that when the Austrian jury results were revealed from the Rathaus in Vienna, there was a resounding set of boos when Austria awarded Russia their eight points. Later in the show when Sweden overtook Russia on the leaderboard, an even bigger cheer went up from the crowd.
Russia have recently come under a lot of scrutiny recently for their agressive foreign policy actions in the Ukraine and for their discriminatory and homophobic laws at home. The backlash was first apparent last year when the Tolmachevy Sister received an extremely negative reaction from the audience.
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