Julia Samoylova to perform 'I Won't Break' for Russia in Lisbon

"This is a song about me. It's as if the authors did their very best to set my own thoughts and feelings to music. It's not so much a tender ballad as a song about strength," said Julia.  

Yuri Aksyuta, Head of Delegation for Russia at the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest and Head of Music Programming at Channel One Russia, said: "We have a great performer, a great song and a beautiful show full of meaning. As always, we expect a lot from the contest that is very popular in our country. Russia is back!" 

I Won't Break

The new song for Julia was written by the same international team of Leonid Gutkin, Netta Nimrodi and Arie Burshtein that produced Flame Is Burning for Samoylova in 2017. Leonid Gutkin, who had previously written songs for such Russian Eurovision contestants as Dina Garipova and Polina Gagarina, said: "This is a very personal song. This is a song about Julia's strength that inspires so many people. The song mentions a castle built of sand that looks very fragile but in fact is rock-solid."

The official video to the song was shot by Alexey Golubev who had directed the official music video and stage show of Polina Gagarina during the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 in Vienna. Even though details remain secret, Alexey said the general idea will spin around "a metaphor of emerging life, love and, most importantly, faith."  

Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest  

Russia made its debut in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1994 but didn't win until Dima Bilan lifted the trophy in Belgrade in 2008 with the song Believe. In recent years Russia has become one of the most successful countries at the Eurovision Song Contest.

In twenty appearances in the Eurovision Song Contest, Russia has finished in the top five nine times. Whilst Russia has only won the Eurovision Song Contest once, it won the Semi-Finals in which it was competing in 2012, 2015 and 2016. Russia is also the only country to qualify and participate in every Eurovision Song Contest Grand Final since the Semi-Finals were introduced in 2004 (Azerbaijan first entered in 2008 and whilst Romania and Ukraine have also qualified every time they have participated, they did not participate in 2016 and 2015 respectively).