Eurovision: Chirayliq victory again!

So the cutest guy in the Eurovision really won. Not that we didn't see that coming ... ;o)
Let's celebrate with some nice pictures:








Apparently Alexander is making his debut as an actor in the biggest Norwegian childrens' movie production of all times, Yohan - Barnevandreren, as a Gypsy who, of course, plays the fiddle. (The film also includes a Japanese sailor who goes around challenging local strong men - partly based on actual historical research, oh my!) More photos with Alexander in this film over here.





Also check out the gallery at eurovision.tv, with lots of photos from when our fellow Tatar host Alsou and her colleague Ivan Urgant announced Rybak the winner and Dima Bilan, winner of the previous Eurovision, came along to give him the award (why are there no good photos of Dima and Alexander together?!) ...

As a matter of fact, Alexander Rybak won another award just before that. The Marcel Bezençon Awards, named after the Swiss guy who founded the Eurovision, are special awards from the press, the participating composers, and previous winners of the contest.
Alexander Rybak won the Press Award, and check out who won the Composers' Award!

Chirayliq Eurovision: Alexander Rybak

Mum reminded us that it's Eurovision Song Contest season again ... So, let's start with Norway!



Yes, the Norwegian performer this year is a cute guy called Alexander Rybak. He was born 1986 in Minsk, Belarussian SSR, and when he was four years old, his family moved to Norway. Rybak has been playing various instruments since he was five years old, and both his parents are violinists. The song "Fairytale" was composed and written by Rybak himself.

Song of Tamerlan

Belarus-born rapper Seryoga (Серёга) made a Chirayliq-themed video for his 2006 song "Chalk of Destiny or song of Tamerlan" ("Мел Судьбы или Песня Тамерлана"). The song was featured in the soundtrack of the Russian fantasy-horror movie Day Watch (Дневной дозор). The Chalk of Destiny is used to rewrite history... something rather useful for a warlord like Timur the Great, known as Tamerlane in the West. Together with Genghis and Kublai Khan, he belongs as much to the world of fable as the facts of history. Their history, too, is constantly being rewritten ... though not with magic chalks that make change eternal.
Timur is claimed as national hero by Uzbekistan. Just the name of its ancient cities make a romantic heart beat faster: Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent. To add to the legend:

Timur's body was exhumed from his tomb in 1941 by the Soviet anthropologist Mikhail M. Gerasimov. From his bones it was clear that Timur was a tall and broad chested man with strong cheek bones. Gerasimov also found that Timur's facial characteristics conformed to that of Mongoloid features, which he believed, in some part, supported Timur's notion that he was descended from Genghis Khan. Gerasimov was able to reconstruct the likeness of Timur from his skull.
Famously, a curse has been attached to opening Timur's tomb. In the year of Timur's death, a sign was carved in his tomb warning that whoever would dare disturb the tomb would bring demons of war onto his land. Gerasimov's expedition opened the tomb on June 19, 1941. Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, began three days later. Timur's skeleton and that of Ulugh Beg, his grandson, were reinterred with full Islamic burial rites in 1942. On that same day, the Soviets won a major victory at Stalingrad.

(From Wikipedia, disputed of course!)