Fake foreigners, rent-a-crowds, and disappointed Z-fans: The Insider’s correspondent chronicles Russia’s Intervision flop

Доступно на русском языке

The Intervision song contest, put forward by the Russian authorities as an answer to the “enemy” Eurovision, was meant to revive the Soviet-era event of the same name. Unlike the widely watched Western competition, the Russian version featured no “LGBT themes” while instead promoting “spiritual bonds.” However, Intervision’s 2025 revival ended up with far fewer participants than its European counterpart, and far less star power. In the end, 22 countries — including China, India, Vietnam, African and Latin American states, and Saudi Arabia — were represented, but the promised act from the United States never materialized.

Nevertheless, Moscow was decorated as if the world really were watching. Intervision banners and installations with announcements of every size and shape filled the entire city center and all the highways leading to the regional concert venue. Promotion of the event began exactly one hundred days before the opening — on Russia Day, when officials solemnly set a countdown clock on Manezhnaya Square. And yet, most Muscovites and visitors to the capital showed no sense of celebration.

Over the past quarter-century the city really has hosted many of the most prestigious and popular international competitions — from the 2009 Eurovision final at Olimpiysky Stadium to the 2018 FIFA World Cup — and the buzz surrounding those events could be felt throughout the city. This time though, aside from flashy advertising, there was nothing to suggest that any festivity was taking place, even though for Moscow this was the first event of such scale since the start of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine.

There was no crowd at Slavyansky Boulevard metro station either, where free buses were arranged to the venue, located in the workers’ settlement of Novoivanovskoye near Odintsovo in the Moscow region. The oversized shuttles, designed for intercity travel and capable of carrying up to 60 passengers, transported just three or four people at a time. An hour before the start, only a couple dozen people stood at the entrance to the 11,000-seat Live Arena — among them a dejected-looking Yelena Malysheva, host of the Living Healthy! TV show. Judging by her gloomy expression, life didn’t seem very healthy for her that day (perhaps because, as The Insider learned, she and other faces of Channel One were obliged to attend the contest).

The “ordinary” spectators looked more cheerful, though judging by their conversations, they were less interested in the contest itself than in the luxurious Live Arena, which, before Crocus City Hall was shut down after the terrorist attack of March 2024, had been a secondary venue due to its remoteness and poorer transport links. Many therefore spent the trip looking around and discussing the elaborately decorated site itself rather than the actual contest.

Organizers handed out flags to the “fans” in equal numbers to make sure no country appeared to be getting more or less visible support. The “foreigners” arrived in groups of 10–20 and, among themselves, spoke suspiciously fluent Russian.

On closer inspection, it turned out that the “foreigners” (mostly Chinese) had long been living in Russia, whether for work or study. They all insisted they had bought tickets entirely with their own money, yet they struggled to recall which website they had used to make the voluntary purchase.

Some had indeed flown in from their home countries specifically for Intervision, though members of this group were far fewer in number:

“In Madagascar we drew lots to decide who would fly, since they allocated just one small plane. They signed me up as an artist, but I’m not competing,” one of the lucky travelers boasted to me. For her, the main thing was neither victory nor participation, but the chance to visit another country — since 2021, due to drought, Madagascar has suffered famine conditions so severe that some people have turned to cacti and locusts for sustenance.

The Russian authorities spared no expense on Intervision. A full 750 million rubles ($9 million) were allocated for the contest, enough to mobilize both foreign and Russian spectators. The latter admitted in conversations that they were fans of only one Russian performer, whom they curiously referred to not by his real name and surname, nor even by his stage name, but only as “our guy.” Russia’s representative was the singer Shaman, yet the spectators recruited as his “fans” carefully avoided any attempts to discuss his actual music.

Overall, the music festival took place in a friendly atmosphere. Shaman’s “fans,” brimming with good cheer, chatted amiably with fellow guests of the contest ,waving flags with red stars and wishing “their Chinese participant” good luck. The latter politely corrected them, saying their contestant was Vietnamese, as were they.

The main — indeed the only — interactive element before the contest began was a nationwide “gathering of Shaman fan clubs.” Whether the “fans” knew beforehand that they were members of such fan clubs could not be determined.

When The Insider’s correspondent reached her seat inside the hall, she found it occupied. “Double booking — nothing serious, happens all the time, we’ll fix it now,” said the usher who rushed to help. While he sorted it out, other attendees, forgetting their hospitality, suggested “throwing out that Chink.”

Later, looking closer at their tickets, some spectators realized that the prices for adjacent seats varied widely — with a range from 6,000 to 30,000 rubles ($70-$350). Having spent such sums, spectators expected the show not to disappoint them.

To be fair, some left satisfied. For example, three Chinese women spent their own money not only on tickets, but also on flights from Beijing to Moscow ($600 round trip) and a hotel in the Russian capital (upwards of $70 per night). It was worth it, they explained breathlessly, to support Wang Xi, a true superstar in China. None of the other performers interested them, but out of courtesy they warmly greeted everyone.

For every camera, Russian fans wearing traditional kokoshnik head dress and holding plush hearts praised local representative Shaman: “Our guy will win! We believe in his victory! There can be no other way! This is the first Intervision since its revival, and Russia must win! We believe in Mother Russia, in our guy, in our victory!” But if any of them genuinely cared about Shaman’s victory, they were in for a disappointment. “By the laws of hospitality, I cannot claim victory,” he said after his performance, drowned out by cries of “Bravo!” from the audience. “I ask the esteemed jury not to score my performance today. I represent Russia, and Russia has already won. It has won because you are all here with us tonight as our guests!”

Those most upset by Shaman’s decision to withdraw from the competitive portion of the contest were likely those who had placed bets on him finishing first. Such fans of “our guy” lost, on average, between 10,000 and 100,000 rubles ($120-$1,200).

If Russian propaganda is to be believed, every second person on Earth was supposed to have witnessed this spectacle. As announced by the country’s First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergei Kiriyenko, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and Channel One CEO Konstantin Ernst, “half of the planet’s population — four billion people — watched Intervision.” At least, that’s what TASS reported the next evening, citing the organizers, who for some reason did not mention this impressive statistic in their official channels after the show. Later, however, the story was corrected: that figure referred to the contest’s potential audience.

Against the backdrop of such impressive numbers, it seemed especially odd that Sergei Lavrov’s interview, given during the contest to Channel One hosts Yekaterina Berezovskaya and Konstantin Panyushkin, was not translated from Russian for the international audience. Even the cue for the audience before and after each song — “Applause!” — was displayed on the narrow vertical side screens only in Cyrillic.

The supposedly live broadcast in fact ran with a delay — first by one, and then by two songs. The Channel One broadcast did indeed begin at the same time as the event at the venue. Before the first act began, the hosts, singer couple Alexey Vorobyov and Aida Garifullina, announced they would now show how the draw for participants had gone. On television, such footage was indeed broadcast, while at the Live Arena, however, the first contestant, Cuban singer Sulema Iglesias Salazar — powerful-voiced and dressed in an authentic fuchsia-colored gown — immediately took the stage.

But no matter how hard Salazar and the other performers tried, the most heated discussions in the hall focused on those who were not performing that evening. First, American singer Brandon Howard, who had been announced, failed to come to Moscow “due to family circumstances.” Then, during Intervision itself, the hosts announced that American Vassy, who had arrived in the capital as his replacement, would also not sing.

“Liberal slut! So she deliberately dropped out to spoil our holiday!” my Z-neighbor exclaimed upon hearing that Vassy, a U.S.-Australian dual citizen who has indeed spoken out in support of LGBTQ+ rights, was not performing.

In the end, many members of the crowd did indeed receive what they were promised — six thousand ($70) rubles in cash in exchange for dressing up in foreign national costumes and dancing for the cameras. After Vietnam’s Duc Phuc was announced as the winner, the line for payouts stretched hundreds of meters.

The extras grumbled that half of this meager pay would have to go toward taxi rides — as was the case for other spectators too. The long voting process and awards ceremony meant that the shuttle buses did not have spectators back to the metro station until well into the night. Even though the capital was listed as a co-organizer of Intervision, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin did not consider the contest important enough to extend metro service past its regularly scheduled 1 a.m. closing time.