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Who won the Eurovision song contest in 2009 – A Norwegian, a Belarusian, or a true European?

We choose the latter conclusion. As the young fiddler Alexander Rybak who was born in Minsk, Belarus and lived in Norway since he was 4 years old with his Belarusian music talented parents won this year contest with a storm.

Alexander Rybak is a true European, born in Belarus and brought up in Norway by his music loving family. He may be the new evidence that Europe is growing into a melt pot of nations, and borders are beginning to fade out. People are migrating through the continent as never before, in all layers of society and from almost everywhere on the continent.

Europe has always consisted of adventurous people, wanting to expand their horizons through expeditions to seek trade and fortune. In today’s Europe, people move around to seek work and opportunities wherever it is offered.

Alexander Rybak is a product of his time as well, born in Minsk, Belarus on May 13th 1986, a violinist, singer, composer and actor from Norway. Rybak represented Norway and won the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow.

Rybak was born in the former Soviet Union in BSSR, named ????????? ???????? ????? written in Cyrillic writing. He and his parents moved to Norway, where he grew up, since the age of four. Rybak has been playing instruments since the age of five, and he now plays both violin and piano. His parents are Natalia Valentinovna Rybak, a famous pianist, and Igor Alexandrovich Rybak, who is a well-known violinist in Norway. Alexander has stated “I always liked to entertain and somehow that is my vocation.” He lives in Nesodden outside of the Norwegian capital Oslo.

Rybak was awarded the highly respected Anders Jahres Culture Prize in 2004. He entered the Norway’s version of Idol reaching the semi final and in 2006 he won the talent competition Kjempesjansen on NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) with his own song Foolin’. Alexander Rybak has collaborated with artists like a-ha’s lead singer Morten Harket and Arve Tellefsen. As of 2007, Rybak played the fiddler in Oslo Nye Teater’s production Fiddler on the Roof. For this role he won the Heddaprisen. He stars as Levi in the film Yohan directed by Grete Salomonsen, also featuring the noted model and singer Aylar Lie.

Alexander Rybak won with overwelming 387 points, the 54th Eurovision in Russia 2009, singing Fairytale, a song inspired by Russian and Norwegian folk music. The song was composed and written by Rybak himself. The song is performed with the modern folk dance company Frikar. The song has received good reviews with a 6 out of 6 from Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet. In an ESCtoday poll he was the lead in a poll with 71.3% to get into the final from the semi he was in.

Alexander Rybak broke the previous record of 292 points scored by Lordi in the 2006 final, finishing with a grand total of 387 points, 169 more than the runner up of Iceland and 95 points more than the previous record holders.

About the Author

He has a background as civil engineer and geoscientist. He has worked mainly within the oil and gas industry from the mid 1980s. He has written a few fictional novels as well as being the author of some professional litterature within oil and gas sector, he is now an editor of some web sites.

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