The Russian national selection for 2012 Eurovision International Song Contest took place in Moscow bringing about 25 contestants who fought for the honor to represent Russia.

Buranovskiye Babushki (Grandmothers from Buranovo) won the hearts of the TV viewers and jurors with their song Party For Everybody scoring the highest number of points and winning the Russian national final, eurovision.tv reports.

The winner was to be picked by the professional jury involving famous musicians and experts of the show business, and TV viewers’ voting, by 50/50 proportion.

The contestants performed in Russian and English, and Buranovskiye Babushki sang their entry partly in Udmurt.

The band Buranovskiye Babushki consists of eight grandmothers. They are originally from Russia’s Udmurt Republic, from the village of Buranovo. The band performs most of their entries in their Udmurt language. The lyrics of Party For Everybody were written by the grannies themselves. Russia will take part in the First Semi-Final of the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest on 22nd May in Baku.

On February 24, Armenian singers refused to participate in Baku-hosted Eurovision 2012 song contest, following the February 23 death of an Armenian soldier in Azeri sniper attack.

On March 7, Armenian Public Television officially informed the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) of Armenia’s withdrawal from the contest.

42 countries will take part in the contest, each semi-final featuring 18 participants. The final will be held on May 26.