The 53rd edition of the Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Belgrade, after the Serbian singer Maria Serifovic won this year’s contest with her ballad Molitva. Serbia participated for the first time in the contest, after proclaiming independence from Montenegro, making this win a first-time event in Eurovision’s history. Thanks to Natalia Barbu’s performance, Moldova has also made it to the final of Eurovision 2008, despite any promotional campaign to endorse Moldova’s entry, Natalia being the sole competitor in Eurovision 2007 to deal with the costs of her participation on her own. Ukraine came second, represented by the cross-dresser Verka Serduchka, and the third was the Russian group Serebro. Romania, represented by Todomondo group with a mix-language song titled “Liubi, Liubi, I Love You”, came thirteenth. A record number of countries - forty two - participated in the televoting. Moldova gained 109 points, with the maximum 12 awarded by Romania. Greece and Portugal offered Natalia 10 points each, Belarus – 8 points, Ukraine and Turkey – 7 points, Spain, Poland and Russia – 6 points, Hungary – 5 points, Israel, Bulgaria and Andorra – 4 points each, Armenia and Georgia – 3 points, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Latvia and Cyprus – 2 points, Norway, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia offered 1 point each. Media treated the quality of this year’s musical offer and voting outcomes in a reserved manner. Dominated by Balkan and ex-Soviet countries, this is how the final ranking can be labelled - “East defeats West”. The “neighbourly voting” was deciding this year too. A number of publications were suggesting that if things move on in the same direction, the contest should be split into Eurovision-East and Eurovision-West, once the western countries have no chance to win as the easterners outnumber them by far. West European countries collected the fewest votes: Sweden came eighteenth, Germany -19th, Spain - 20th, France - 22nd, UK – 23rd, Ireland – 24th. Whereas Germany, Spain, France and UK are directly qualified for the finals every year as the founding members of the contest, it is for the first time in the contest’s 52-year history that all the Scandinavian countries miss a direct entry to the final. Eurovision Song Contest was watched by 120 million people across Europe.