Russia's Eurovision rival

Hello! This week we look at Intervision, the revived Soviet-era song contest designed to rival Eurovision that was light on the camp and heavy on the propaganda.

Intervision, Moscow’s propaganda-filled song contest

Russia staged the Intervision music contest over the weekend, a Vladimir Putin-ordered Eurovision clone, designed to show Moscow is better off without Europe’s most popular glee-filled musical event of the year. Kicked out of the real Eurovision for its invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s resurrection of the Soviet-era song contest, turned out to be little more than a publicity farce designed to do little more than troll the West. Widely covered on Russian TV, the organizers even ham-fistedly tried to claim it had a global audience of some four billion people. Spoiling the party somewhat, Russian pop icon Alla Pugacheva, who won the original Intervision in the 1970s, gave her first interview since 2022 on the eve of the contest, using it to repeat her criticism of the war in Ukraine.

Traditional values and Soviet history

The first serious plans to stage a Russian version of Eurovision, “free from political influence” surfaced in 2023. Given Putin’s predilection for reviving Soviet institutions, like the Young Pioneers and parades of athletes, it was natural Russia would look to its Soviet legacy for how to respond to being kicked out of the European Broadcasting Union and losing access to Eurovision.