Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1994

Evrovidenie 1994 - Nacionalny Otbor was the first edition of Evrovidenie, the music competition that selects Russia's entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition was held on 12 March 1994 at the Shabolovka Studios in Moscow, hosted by Vadim Dolgachev and broadcast on RTR.[2]

The competition featured nine entries where the Russian entry for Dublin was selected by a sixteen-member jury panel (nine music professionals and seven representatives of the public). Each juror gives 1 point to his/her one, two or three favorite entry/entries. The summation of the jury scores determined the winning entry.

The jury panel consisted of:

• Sergey Podgorbunsky - CEO of RTR (jury chairperson)
• Bari Alibasov - producer.
• Maya Gordeeva - journalist.
• Oleg Gusev - music video director, composer.
• Klara Novikova - entertainer.
• Yuri Saulsky - composer, conductor.
• Lora Kvint - composer.
• Mikhail Kuvshinov - sound engineer.
• Elena Velikanova - singer.
• Natalia Shuykina - student of Plekhanov Academy.
• Valery Kiselyov - militia [i.e. police] starshina [junior officer].
• Tatiana Algebraistova - student of Pedagogical Institute.
• Andrey Kalachikhin - businessman.
• Olga Suvorova - student of Bauman University.
• Irina Berezina - engineer-economist.
• Andrey Panov - student of Moscow State University.
• Aleksandr Danilkin - businessman.

In 1994, RTR opened the submission period for interested artists and composers to submit their entries. All submitted songs were required to be performed in Russian. A panel of experts appointed by RTR selected eleven entries for the competition from more than 30 received submissions.

Final was held on 12 March 1994 at the Shabolovka Studios in Moscow, hosted by Vadim Dolgachev. Two songs were disqualified prior to the competition: "Oi oi oi" performed by Alena Apina was disqualified after being performed on Russian TV channel 2x2 prior to the competition, thereby violating the rules of the national final and "Kogda vernus v Rossiyu" performed by Vika Tsiganova, which was withdrawn after Tsiganova wanted to change her contest song, which was not allowed by the rules.[3][4] The disqualified songs were performed as part of the interval act. Youddiph was the winner of the national final with the song "Vechny strannik".[5][6]