Brave Kristall and her team had fought through fear (apparently quite a few team members are really afraid of travelling on plane) and arrived well to Yerevan. They especially wanted me to thank Aerosvit airlines from Kyiv that had actually changed the aircraft (!) to make Kristall podium fit into it!

From Ukraine arrival

From Ukraine arrival

Kristall says that her flight was really good, comfortable take off and landing. She liked a lot that when they were leaving the airport, there were a lot of people greeting them, thanks to everyone. She adds that she doesn't want to sleep at all, but probably will still get to the bed, and sleep a bit, but will not miss her breakfast. Tomorrow she wants to walk around the city. She expects to find a lot of new friends, good applauds on stage and have a good time, which is the most important.

After that Ukrainian delegation rushed to their room, quite eager to get in time for breakfast that ends at 10 and ESCKAZ kept waiting...

While waiting for delegation of Latvia we have chatted with the first contestant in Yerevan - Dorijan Dlaka.

Dorijan has been ill throughout the last week and is still taking pills, so delegation has been over cautious with him, and let him go out in Yerevan today just for a short dinner (as they have missed breakfast sleeping).

He announces (after some mix-up) the answer to the question we've asked two posts ago.

We will sure catch up with Dorijan and his lovely partner Dejana a bit later.

This is it for today and the die-hard fans of JESC may get up at around 2 am CET when we will be greeting two more countries. ESCKAZ is always there where things happen!

Amanda Bashmakova and delegation of Latvia are in Yerevan. They are one of few delegations arriving at day time though, as schedule of Armenian airport has mostly night time arrivals.

From Latvia arrival

From Latvia arrival

We've been waiting together with Macedonian entrants here to greet Latvian delegation, do you see Dorijan and Amanda having something similar?

From Latvia arrival

Amanda says her trip was rather calm, safe and comfortable, though there was some problem and she had some ears ache during the first flight to Moscow, but second flight for Yerevan was fine.
From the contest she waits all the positive things, would like to meet and become friends with every participant.

PS. We kindly ask any other blogs, fan sites or groups not to reuse our photos. If I will spot them being reused, we would have to introduce watermark, and we do not want this to happen.

While we're waiting for the only delegation coming today at the daytime (and with big thanks to Tigran Danielyan and Artak Vartanyan we've got the schedule of arrivals, here are some useless facts:

- Smallest delegation is one of Moldova. The head of delegation will not be coming to Yerevan and as far as I know the interest in the country for JESC project is lowest possible. With spendings being pretty big, it looks likely to me that Moldova may withdraw from the participation next year. Anyway, best of luck to Lerika, her mother and vocal coach who will make the delegation. Latvian one is almost same small, head of delegation added.
- No Eurovision-man himself, Christer Bjorkman supposedly is not coming with his Swedish delegation this year
- Biggest delegation is one of The Netherlands, around 30 persons. Also big are delegations of Belgium, Russia, Ukraine and Georgia.
- There will be very few commentators on spot in Yerevan - of them Timur Miroshnichenko and Denis Kuryan will be the first to arrive, being joined by Olga Shelest and Marcel Kuijer in the last days.
- And a question to the followers of blog - which surprising things brought delegation of Macedonia to Yerevan (not performance related)?

Well, there is quite a challenge - it is 5 am on the clocks of Ani Plaza at the moment, but we've promised to be delivering news first - so here they come!

Energetic Dorijan Dlaka, beautiful Dejana Poposka, head of delegation Rade Spasovski, choreographer Jana Andrejevic and the rest of the Macedonian team are here!

From Macedonia arrival

From Macedonia arrival

From Macedonia arrival

I'm sorry for the unchanged header, I hope we will work it out soon.
So far Yerevan seems rather empty - without those running excited kids.
But it will definitely changed soon.
I guess we're first here, right after organizers from EBU.
No schedule of arrivals here at Ani Plaza and none has been provided to us by organizers, but to my best knowledge we're expecting 3 delegations on Saturday! So stay tuned to the blog to find out which ones!
No JESC sings in airport, noticed one huge banner (the one with Dalita on) on the way to the city.
In Ani Plaza there is welcoming sign at the entrance and ready but still empty volunteers desk.

From Ani Plaza

From Ani Plaza

We got so much wrong this year, except for one key thing......I had a very nice each way bet on Italy which will help towards the cost of flights to Baku next year......

Well done to Azerbaijan and having watched the re-run on www.eurovision.tv it seems like an ok winner to me.

Have to say we are very much looking forward to Azerbaijan next year, I have a feeling that the eurovision 2 weeks will be more like Moscow than Oslo or Dusseldorf......which is a HUGE plus;-))))

May post some sort of in depth review later this week but it's time to go to bed now for some well earned sleep before going home tomorrow

Toodles

M+D

Сперва анализ результатов финала 56-го конкурса Евровидения:
01. Азербайджан__________221 (3 х12 от России, Турции, Мальты)
02. Италия_______________189 (4 х12 от Албании, Латвии, Сан-Марино, Испании)
03. Швеция_______________185 (2 х12 от Эстонии, Израиля)
04. Украина______________159 (3 х12 от Армении, Азербайджана, Словакии)
05. Дания________________134 (3 х12 от Исландии, Ирландии, Нидерландов)
06. Босния и Герцеговина__125 (5 х12 от Австрии, Македонии, Сербии, Словении, Швейцарии)
07. Греция_______________120 (1 х12 от Кипра)
08. Ирландия_____________119 (3 х12 от Дании, Швеции, Великобритании)
09. Грузия_______________110 (3 х12 от Беларуссии, Литвы, Украины)
10. Германия_____________107 (максимум 10 баллов от Австрии)
11. Великобритания_______100
12. Молдова_______________97
13. Словения______________96
14. Сербия________________85
15. Франция_______________82
16. Россия________________77 (максимум 8 баллов от Армении, Израиля и Украины, 6 от Литвы, 5 от Беларуссии, Эстонии, Молдовы, Германии, 4 от Азербайджана, Грузии, Албании, Болгарии, Сербии, Словакии)
17. Румыния_______________77 (2х 12 от Италии, Молдовы)
18. Австрия_______________64
19. Литва_________________63
20. Исландия______________61
21. Финляндия_____________57
22. Венгрия_______________53
23. Испания_______________50
24. Эстония_______________44
25. Швейцария____________19
Про топ-з Азербайджана говорили всю неделю. Немецкие СМИ перед полуфиналом рассказывали преимущественно про азербайджанский дуэт, несмотря на то, что по музыкальным каналам упорно крутили английскую команду Blue. Завистники Эльдара и Нигяр рассказывали про купленные голоса европейских жюри. И что, по непроверенным слухам, Израиль предъявил протест, после того, как их тоже попытались подкупить.
Вместе с этим, удивительным является тот факт, что всего лишь три страны поставили Азербайджан на первое место: дружественные Турция и Россия, а также Мальта (?). Исходя из этого, неудивительно, что страна-победитель набрала самое минимальное количество баллов, начиная с 2004 года, когда ввели формат проведения конкурса с полуфиналом.
Поразили результаты России, занявшей то ли 16, то ли 17 место и набравшей вместе с Румынией одинаковое количество баллов - по 77.
Результаты букмекерских лидеров поразили своей далекостью от победителя: Франция - 15 место, Ирландия - 8-ая и Англия - 11-я.
Первые реакции российских журналистов в пресс-центре после победы Эльдара и Нигяр: - Уррра! Едем в Баку!... Будет очень гостеприимно и тепло! Не придется клянчить заветные браслеты, чтобы попасть на мероприятия и вечеринки вронедели и не нужно будет кутаться в куртки, как в Москве, Осло и Дюссельдорфе на финалах. И главное - нет необходимости оформлять визы, чтобы съездить на конкурс!
Всё это через год. Для начала поздравляю Азербайджан с победой на Евровидении! Это уже 5 страна из постсоветского пространства (после Эстонии, Латвии, Украины и России), принимающая главный музыкальный конкурс Европы. К тому же полностью находящаяся на територии Азии ;-)

Я считаю, они или победили бы в этом году, или лет через 5, ибо такой большой смысл в ЕВ не вкладывал никто. Ждем отличнейшего шоу в Баку. Всем спасибо, кто читал наш блог и до встречи в Баку!)