The exacting laurels

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed indignation at the results of the vote of Azerbaijan at the Eurovision Musical Competition, which took place in the Swedish city of Malmo on May 14-18. He stated this at a meeting with the head of the Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan Elmar Mamedyarov, reports Echo of Moscow.

"When our participant stole 10 points, this is not happy, first of all, from the point of view of how this event is organized," Lavtrov said. He also promised that "this outrageous action would not remain unanswered."

The source of RIA Novosti in the Russian Foreign Ministry confirmed that during the negotiations, the Azerbaijani side "gave explanations about what happened to Russian points."

At Eurovision 2013, the Russian contestant Dina Garipova took fifth place, gaining 174 points. In the final counting of votes from Azerbaijan of Russia, not a single point was given. At the same time, according to Azerbaijan public television, the Russian woman, according to the results of SMS voting, took second place among all performers in the country.

The president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev previously demanded to study the issue with the missing votes of the Azerbaijanis given to the Russian artist.

The Ambassador of Azerbaijan in Moscow, the famous singer Paul Bul-Bul oglu said that Garipova could get at least 10 points from his country. He noted that these points would not have changed Garipova’s position in the finalists table, but this, according to him, is a “fundamental question”. "Somehow, these votes disappeared and were not taken into account during the final vote. I think there is a call center, or a technical failure, or a focused action," the ambassador told the first channel of Russian television.

Dina Garipova at Eurovision took fifth place, gaining 174 points. The fourth place went to Norway with 191 points, that is, Norway was ahead of Russia by 17 points, and the possible 10 points from Azerbaijan would not have changed the positions of participants in the final table. The first place in the competition was taken by the performer from Denmark, who received 281 points.