Greece in the Eurovision Song Contest Greece won for the first time in 2005 with Elena Paparizou singing "My Number One", which at the time tied for the record for the most number of "twelve points" allocated to a song (ten in total) along with Katrina and the Waves' 1997 "Love Shine A Light". The song also made Greece the first country not a member of Big Four to win the contest without going through a semifinal. After Eurovision, the song topped the charts in Greece, Cyprus and Sweden and entered the top ten in Romania, the Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium, as well as the American "Billboard"
Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 Russia in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997 Russia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 1997] in Dublin, Ireland. The Russian entry was selected internally by the Russian broadcaster Russian Public Television (ORT). Alla Pugacheva represented Russia with the song "Primadonna", which placed 15th and scored 33 points at the contest. ORT held an internal selection in order to decide the artist and song that would represent Russia. 53 songs were submitted to the production company Programma A, which selected the Russian entry by assembling a jury panel that included Yury Saulsky, Maksim Dunaevsky, Alexander Kutikov, Yuri Aksyuta and Sergei Arhipov.