3+2 equals 12 for Belarus in Eurovision?

Today, the Belarusian champion for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo was announced by BTRC. The honour goes to the band 2+3 with the pop/rock song Far Away. As the name implies, the band consists of five members: Artyom Mihalenko, Egiazar Farashyan, Yulia Shishko, Alyona and Ninel  Karpovich. The song is written by Leonid Shirin and Yury Vaschuk, reports the fansite Eurosong.hr.

Now, Europe and fans of Belarusian music waits to see if 3+2 can produce 12 points from the respective voters in the Eurovision Song Contest.

Internal jury

The winning entry was selected by an internal jury of the Belarusian national broadcaster BTRC. Previously ONT, another TV company in Belarus, held a run of TV shows to select a preliminary entry. However, ONT has yet to obtain membership in the European Broadcasting Union, which kept the company from selecting the Belarusian entry. The band 3+2 participated with Far Away in the contest organised by ONT, before also submitting the song for the BTRC internal selection.

A total number of 41 songs were submitted to BTRC for the Belarusian slot in the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. The competition was open to participants from any country, and entries were sent in from not only Belarus, but also Russia, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland and Australia, reports BTRC.

Aleks as back-up

As a reserve entry, BTRC has selected the performer Aleks with the song How Can It Be.

The announcement of the 2010 Belarusian representative came as a surprise to many. Previously, no date has been set for the revelation, but only the information that the entry would be revealed before the 10th of March.

In 2010, Belarus is also hosting the Grand Final of the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. The contest will take place in the fall of the year in Minsk.

For the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, Belarus was represented by Petr Elfimov, performing Eyes That Never Lie. Petr collected finally the thirteenth place in the televoting, and thus did not qualify for the Final. However, the winner of the contest, Alexander Rybak representing Norway, was born in Belarus.