Russia will create a music festival analogous to Eurovision and will call it Intervisión, in the image and likeness of a contest that already existed in times of the Soviet Union, local authorities reported. “We propose to create an open and independent Eurasian film festival and a film award, as well as the Intervision music competition,” said Russian Culture Minister Olga Liubimova, quoted by the Interfax agency.

According to the minister, Russia will contribute in this way to promoting “diversity of cultures in a multipolar world“. The director of the First Russian Channel, Konstantin Ernst, pointed out, for his part, that the new musical competition will celebrate its first edition next year and will be annual.

Ernst assured that Intervisión It will have no “political restrictions” and will be a “free forum” in which all countries will be able to present their best songs. At the same time, he relied on the “active participation” of the members of the BRICS group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).

Previously, Russian film director Nikita Mijalkov said that the Eurasian Film Academy could start operating and present its award, called to be the “Russian Oscar”, starting in 2024. The Intervisión song festival already existed in Soviet times, when it brought together several Eastern bloc countries. And all because of NATO, which played an important role in the genesis of the Eurovision Song Contest (so much so that it was almost called the North Atlantic Festival).

The success of the musical contest led the USSR to replicate the idea at the Intervisión Festival, where the Eastern Bloc countries presented their musical proposals. Among them, In 1978, there was the Spanish group Rumba 3 with their song ‘I don’t know, I don’t know’, that did not end up reaching the Soviet public. Russia was excluded from Eurovision in 2022, after the start of its military offensive in Ukraine.