When Vietnamese singer Duc Phuc held aloft the crystal cup trophy in Moscow’s Stay Enviornment on Saturday night time, he grew to become the inaugural winner of recent music contest Intervision — a Russian reply to Eurovision that some say is as a lot about politics and energy as it’s about efficiency.
In a present overflowing with thundering vocals and pyrotechnics, Duc Phuc’s music “Phu Dong Thien Vuong,” a heady mixture of pop, rap and dubstep, noticed off second-place Kyrgyzstan to take residence the grand prize of 30 million rubles (about $360,000).
The ultimate additionally introduced the sudden. Moments earlier than the U.S. entrant, Australian-born Vassy, was because of take to the stage, the present’s presenters introduced that she wouldn’t have the ability to carry out because of “political pressure” from the Australian authorities. One other act, singer-songwriter Brandon Howard, had been slated to carry out for the U.S. till three days earlier than the ultimate present. He finally dropped out because of “unforeseen family circumstances.”
Vassy informed the Related Press that she was not in a position to presently touch upon the incident.
Then, as Russian singer Shaman completed his act, he delivered a passionate speech asking for Russia’s efficiency to not be thought of by the worldwide jury.
“Russia has already won by inviting so many countries to join us,” he mentioned.
Glitter and geopolitics
For many years, the sequin-encrusted pinnacle of worldwide music competitions has been Eurovision — the European Broadcasting Union’s continent-spanning celebration of music. Intervision needs to assert that crown. Very similar to Eurovision, the competition sees acts carry out below their nationwide flag in entrance of hundreds in a bid to win votes and glory.
However beneath the glitter, geopolitics bubbles. Signed into life by particular presidential decree in February — three years after Moscow was barred from Eurovision for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — the Russia-hosted Intervision provides Moscow a self-built platform again on the worldwide cultural stage.
Kremlin officers insist that Intervision shouldn’t be an instance of Russian mushy energy. “What we are doing is diametrically opposite to the attempts to use sports, art, and any other human activities for political gains,” Russian Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov informed journalists in a pre-contest press convention.
But high-level Russian politicians have been persistently linked to selling Intervision. President Vladimir Putin mentioned the competition throughout his state go to to China at first of September and recorded a particular video message screened earlier than the present started. Lavrov additionally appeared on the present, holding an interview between the primary and second acts.
The competitors’s significance in displaying a Russia that has been embraced, not ostracized, by the world at giant, regardless of its 3½-year conflict, is not possible to keep away from.
“Eurovision pales in comparison to Intervision,” lawmaker Leonid Slutsky informed Russian state information company Tass. “(It) destroys the myth of Russian isolation.”
Russia needs a world stage
Intervision is modeled after a socialist-era contest of the identical identify hosted in Czechoslovakia between 1965 and 1968, and Poland between 1977 and 1980. Though the 2025 Intervision has been hailed as a revival, the competitions by no means sparked a lot curiosity in Soviet Russia, says historian Dean Vuletic, writer of “Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest.”
Czechoslovak and Polish tv “noticed Intervision as a bridge between East and West,” Vuletic says. “They wanted to attract the attention of Western media, Western record companies.”
Overseas artists additionally used Intervision to construct their world profile. Boney M famously featured as an interval act in 1979, the place they carried out their hit “Rasputin.”
In 2025, there are nonetheless loads of artists able to embrace a worldwide viewers, though many of the performers concerned are from international locations that take no less than a impartial stance to Russia’s conflict in Ukraine.
The Intervision lineup featured 23 acts, together with China, South Africa, Brazil, the UAE, India, Cuba, Ethiopia and Venezuela. Vassy, representing the US, was a noticeable outlier.
The choice course of for particular person acts, nonetheless, is tough to trace. In its guidelines, Intervision says that co-organizers — the authorized entity in command of nominating acts, organizing broadcasts and selling the competition in its residence nation — can vary from nationwide broadcasters to people, however there’s no public checklist to substantiate who these co-organizers are.
In consequence, some performers outweigh others for cultural clout, regardless of Intervision’s stipulation that each one acts must be a “national star.” Russia’s entry, the ultra-patriotic Shaman, is among the nation’s most closely promoted acts. Musicians like Kenya’s Sanaipei and Madagascar’s Denise and D-Lain even have loyal followings again residence.
Different artists have a smaller profile. Egypt’s Moustafa Saad is greatest often called a soloist on the Alexandria Opera Home, a comparatively area of interest style within the nation.
It wants a key factor now — followers
But if Intervision hopes to construct an actual legacy, the competition doesn’t have to win over musicians, however followers.
Content material creator Henrik Larsson movies Eurovision-based response movies for his YouTube channel. He’s one in every of a small group of creators to have posted Intervision-related clips. “It gave me a perspective of different songs apart from the world, not just Europe. And some of the songs are fantastic.”
However most Eurovision fan communities have ignored Intervision completely. “Let the dictators and war criminals have their own little party where they can spout their propaganda and call it a contest,” learn one touch upon a preferred Eurovision Reddit discussion board.
Except for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Intervision has additionally made a public dedication to “traditional universal and family values” — an affront to many followers of the LGBTQ+-friendly Eurovision. Details about Vassy’s function as an envoy for the NOH8 Marketing campaign, a nonprofit selling LGBTQ+ rights and gender equality, disappeared briefly from her Wikipedia web page after her participation within the contest was introduced. It was later restored.
It’s additionally unclear simply how a lot curiosity Intervision will have the ability to command in Russia. The AP discovered a number of ads on on-line casting web sites providing a small fee for anybody who would be a part of the Intervision crowd.
With no fan base or a central group driving the competitors onward, Intervision’s future will depend upon political will. That’s dangerous, says historian Dean Vuletic. Each the Czechoslovak and Polish iterations of Intervision of the Sixties and Seventies finally fizzled because of social upheaval and altering political priorities.
Because the 2025 present drew to a detailed, organizers introduced that subsequent 12 months’s Intervision could be held in Saudi Arabia.
For now, Kremlin enthusiasm is in no quick provide for the competitors’s deliberate 2026 version.
“In Soviet times, the party and government made decisions to promote a positive image of Russia abroad. Today, we must advance an objective portrayal,” Lavrov mentioned. “Indeed, some of our perceived shortcomings provoke envy among many foreign counterparts.”
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Related Press writers Sarah Tetaud in Antananarivo, Madagascar, Nicholas Komu in Nairobi, Kenya, and Fay Abuelgasim in Cairo contributed.
