Russia: A balanced performance by the youngest artists

In today's first rehearsal of the Russian delegation, the Tolmachevy Sisters demonstrated that, despite being the youngest singers to take the stage, they are still professional and experienced musicians, showing a great vocal performance - and they look gorgeous!

This content is unfortunately no longer available

During their three-minute performance, they are standing on a prop that moves like a balance, and they are holding two translucent sticks which are part of the choreography.

Smoke effects and moving spotlights are used, the latter also lighting the back of the white sun-like canvas that opens up behind the girls during the last part of the song, when they also leave the pedestal. At the same time, a waterfall pyro effect is used along the whole background of the scene.

Russia has one of the most international teams in this year's Eurovision Song Contest, involving backing vocalists from Sweden and Portugal, artists from Malta and Greece in the songwriting team, and two more experienced former Eurovision entrants: Philipp Kirkorov, who is one of the songwriters too and had previously represented Russia in 1995, and Alexandrous Panayi, who represented Cyprus in 1995 and 2000.

Preparing backstage

This content is unfortunately no longer available

The Tolmachevy Sisters from Russia were mingling backstage before their first rehearsal. Even though they are only 17 years old, they appear very professional and friendly at the same time - after all, they have quite an amazing stage experience already, having won the Junior Eurovision Song Contest in 2006!

"We really like it here in Denmark, even though we didn't have time to really explore Copenhagen yet. But it's so nice and sunny here", Masha and Nastya told Eurovision.tv. But as we can see now, they managed to tour the city today right after their rehearsal:

"It's exciting, and very different from our Junior Eurovision experience", they said before trying out the prop they prepared for their stage act.

They were carrying two long translucent sticks. "It's part of our act - you'll see!", they said before trying out the complicated mechanism they'll be using on stage. It's a pedestal that is level in the beginning but then starts moving like a seesaw, opening up a white round canvas in the back towards the end.

After their rehearsal, the Tolmachevy Sisters stopped by once more to give us a short piece of their 2006 Junior Eurovision entry, Vesenniy Jazz - you can watch it now on Youtube: