Russia's love affair with Eurovision reached a peak in 2008, when the singer Dima Bilan was crowned the winner of the competition.

The revived contest, planned to take place in Moscow later this year, is Russia's way of directly challenging Eurovision while promoting "traditional values." View on euronews

Eurovision move out of the way, because Vladimir Putin is set to stage his very own anti-Western international song contest. The rival event – called Intervision – previously ran in Russia between 1965 and 1968 and then later between 1977 and 1980 but was a flop.