Skip to main content

Winner's press conference

25 May 2008 at 03:29 CEST

At the press conference, Dima Bilan and the rest of the Russian delegation were received by the fans and accredited press. Dima Bilan had to receive the new generic Eurovision Song Contest trophy, a painting and additional awards. 

Dima Bilan said this was a commemorable day, and he sincerely thanked the team behind him. They did not always smile, Dima Bilan said, but it has been a long, hard journey. Moreover he gave a personal thanks to Eugeni Pluschenko, who was the figure skater next to Bilan during his performance of Believe. The Eurovision trophy is going to the composer of the song, Dima Bilan said.

Thereafter the floor was opened for questions, and a reporter asked Dima Bilan what his plans for the future were. To this Dima Bilan said that he was going to promote his new CD and to go on with his career. Half of the victory was Evgeni Pluschenko's, a Russian journalist claimed, and he asked the renowned figure skater if he wanted to sing himself in the future. Evgeni responded that he was a figure skater and not a singer, and therefore he had no plans of singing on stage.

When Dima was asked about his feelings after his victory, he replied that it would probably take him three days to realize what victory actually means to him, just as Marija Serifovic said last year. Another journalist asked him, if his performance tonight had been the longest, the shortest or the happiest three minutes in his life - and he answered that it was actually all three of them. Dima went on to sing a part of his winning song Believe in Spanish, accompanied by Edvin Marton on his Stradivari violin.

Another journalist hinted at the fact that Edvin Marton could not play his Stradivari violin live on stage according to the 2008 Eurovision Song Contest rules. Edvin Marton replied that, actually, he had been playing live, it could just not be heard. The last question was how Dima managed to write a song that was even better than last year's winning song. He answered that, in fact, he had not sung a better song, but just a different one.