Russia in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020

Prior to the 2020 contest, Russia had participated in the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 15 times since its debut in 2005. Russia has won the contest twice: in 2006 with the song "Vesenniy jazz" performed by the Tolmachevy Twins, and in 2017 with the song "Wings" performed by Polina Bogusevich.^[1] In the 2019 contest, Russia was represented by the song "A Time for Us" performed by Tatyana Mezhentseva and Denberel Oorzhak. The song placed 13th in a field of 19 countries with 72 points.^[2]

The Russian broadcaster, VGTRK, announced on 2 April 2020 that they would be participating in the 2020 contest.^[3] Submissions for entrants were open between 6 April to 25 August, with the audition stage taking place in the Russian capital, Moscow, in September 2020.^[3] VGTRK announced on 15 September that a total of eleven artists would be competing in the national final.^[4][5] The national selection of the entrant for Russia took place on 25 September 2020, and was televised a day later on 26 September. The winner was determined by a voting split of 50% jury members and 50% internet voting which opened on 16 September and closed on 24 September.^[4][5] Sofia Feskova won the national final with the song "Moy novy den".^[6]

Sofia Feskova (Russian: София Феськова; born 5 September 2009)^[7] is a 13 year old Russian singer from St. Petersburg. She represented Russia at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020 with the song "Moy novyy den".^[8]

"Moy novy den" (Russian: Мой новый день; English: "My New Day")^[9] is a song by Russian singer Sofia Feskova. It represented Russia at the Junior Eurovision Song Contest 2020.

After the opening ceremony, which took place on 23 November, it was announced that Russia will perform ninth during the final, following Malta and preceding Spain.^[10] The contest was broadcast live from Warsaw, Poland, on 29 November 2020.

Feskova's performance featured augmented reality, with "bright pictures from magical dreams" on the LED screen.^[11]

The same voting system that was introduced in the 2017 edition was used, where the results were determined by 50% online voting and 50% jury voting.^[12] Every country had a national jury that consisted of three music industry professionals and two children aged between 10 and 15 who were citizens of the country they represented. The rankings of those jurors were combined to make an overall top ten.^[13]

The online voting consisted of two phases. The first phase of the online voting began on 27 November 2020 when a recap of all the rehearsal performances was shown on the contest's website Junioreurovision.tv before the viewers could vote. After this, voters also had the option to watch longer one-minute clips from each participant's rehearsal. This first round of voting ended on 29 November at 15:59 CET. The second phase of the online voting took place during the live show and began right after the last performance and was open for 15 minutes. International viewers were able vote for three songs.^[14] They were also able to vote for their own country's song. These votes were then turned into points which were determined by the percentage of votes received. For example, if a song received 10% of the votes, it received 10% of the available points.