Originally Posted by zoomzoom (Post 1484161)

But.. Finland won in 2006. Russia never won before, wouldn't they have won every year since like 2003 when the east countries started coming in?

I don't think Russia should've won, but it didn't win entirely because of neighbors. I think what happened was, that a lot of people wanted a slow, "beautiful" song to win and a lot of people wanted an upbeat song to win. If you look at 2nd place, it's a chick with an upbeat song. 3rd place, it's a chick with an upbeat song. 4th place, it's a chick with an upbeat song. The votes for the upbeat songs were split and it came in favor of Russia who had no real slow song competition.