Naš Puĺs Bjecca 2.4

**Naš Puĺs Bjecca 2.4** (Cyrillic: *Наш пульс б'ецца 2.4*) is the national selection for Belarus in The Origin Song Contest 04 in Germany.

## Selection of entries

The selection of entry began during the Origin Song Contest 03, the submission period for entries began on November 23 2017 and ended on December 13 2017, when live auditions were held. A panel of expert juries, as well as the other auditioning artists voted for their favorites, and 11 artists were shortlisted for the national final. There was a large increase in submissions compared to the first edition of Naš Puĺs Bjecca, where a total of 50 entries were submitted, as a total of 112 entries were recieved during the submission period.

## Presentation of host and national final

On December 10 it was revealed that Belarusian guitarist, producer, director, and media personality Alexander Tobolskiy will host the second edition of Naš Puĺs Bjecca, which was then incorrectly referred to as "Naš Puĺs Bjecca 2.3", but due to changes in the voting system and a larger number of entries the national final it was changed to 2.4, the four later being explained as referring to the fourth edition of the Origin Song Contest.

The reason for last edition's host Teo not hosting is that he is busy working on other projects for the Belteleradiocompany and The Origin Broadcasting Union.

## Withdrawn entries and absences

Like last time, Rita Dakota submitted an entry - this time "Kto" - but it was not accepted due to fact that t had been submitted for other international music festivals.

Sweet Brains, last edition's last placers, had previously expressed interest in participating, but since they had no new song to submit they could not audition.

## Entries

On December 14th, the languages of the competing entries were revealed, showing that the majority of the songs - six out of eleven - were performed in Russian, four entries in Belarusian, and one entry was performed in English. This contrasted somewhat with the submitted entries, as 41 submissions were recieved in Russian, 35 in English, 31 in Belarusian, three in Ukrainian, one in Spanish and one in Korean. Like the majority of the submissions, the majority of the chosen entries were in Russian, but only one out of 35 English-language entries was accepted.

## Song reveal show

The song reveal show took place on December 15th in the 600 Metrov Studio in Minsk. It was opened by Alexander pointing out the large difference between the prediction of the results and the actual results - Belarus were third (with the same average as second place Slovenia) overall in the odds, but only finished 17th, and he expressed the overall disappointment in the country over the result.

## Final results and superfinal

Alexander opened the final results by thanking the juries who voted for their participation. He also sent out a thank you to his many fans, and asked them to stop following him around. Some more pictures from his Instagram page were added for good measure.

The 11th through 4th places were revealed in order, starting with the lowest placed, and a Coca Cola ad from this summer was played between the 6th and 5th places for extra suspense (and so that the voters could contemplate their hashtag choices).

The top three of the finalists qualified to the superfinal. The superfinal voting system consisted of the juries ranking each act between 0 and 100 points for extra accuracy. This was changed after the show aired, causing some confusion among the voters.

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## Superfinal results show

The superfinal results show took place at 00:00 Belarusian time on 4 January 2018. The opening act was an acoustic cover of Rita Dakota's hit "Polcheloveka" performed by last edition of Naš Puĺs Bjecca's runner-up Diana Gromova on a kitchen floor. After the opening act Alexander thanked the voting countries for voting and showed pictures from his vacation by the sea in Ukraine, where he was able to travel to instead of Cologne, Germany. Mustii arrived to inform about the Brussels Origin Pre-Party (BOP) in Belgium, Honorata Skarbek - Poland's representative in edition 4 made an appearance, and Jaana Pelkonen came to see her fans and to confirm that all the voting had gone according to procedure. ZØYA, the last Naš Puĺs Bjecca winner, made an appearance as well but refused to speak, blaming it on being jetlagged. It was first revealed that Natalia Podolskaya finished third with 914 points, and after that it was revealed that the winner would receive 1164 points and the runner up 925. Alexander got distracted reading the tweet by his fan, but after he read it out loud it was revealed that Immerse were the winners and that IOWA got second place. What is interesting is that the results were a reversal of the top three in the final - Natalia Podolskaya had placed first in the original final, IOWA second and Immerse third - but in the superfinal Natalia placed last, IOWA second again and Immerse first. Immerse got up on stage and expressed their inability to understand that they had won, and that they are honored to represent Belarus in Cologne.

### Twitter feed

During the show, live tweets were shown in a box in the right corner. Some notable tweets include the mother of Ksenia Zhuk of Naviband telling Alexander to tell Ksenia not to drink alcohol (because Ksenia is pregnant); Anastasia Vinnikova and Sasha Nemo being united in loving Belarus; Jaana Pelkonen's tweet somehow coming on screen four seconds before she took to the stage; many heads of delegation of The Origin Song Contest; Alexander's own mother telling him he was doing a great job; Sasha the biggest TOSC fan in Belarus being disappointed in the winner; a fan of Alexander fondly calling Alexander "hat guy" and their "love of my life" - to which Alexander responded "Thank you, darling". The Twitter feed was largely regarded as a success and will probably return in the next edition.

## Incidents

### Live auditions

Sweet Brains showed up at the auditions without a song.

Naviband almost missed their audition time due to a late delivery of furniture from IKEA.

Angelika Pushnova and NAPOLI both showed up at the auditions, performing the same song, and after arguing for over 25 minutes and completely wrecking the schedule, they both decided to withdraw.

### Song reveal show

When Alexander requested for a picture of him at the Alexanderplatz in Berlin to be shown, something malfunctioned backstage and led the screen to show other pictures from his Instagram account, such as a picture of him with a steak, a picture of him half-dressed with Artem of Naviband (also half-dressed), a picture of him in front of portable toilets, and a picture of him being eaten by a sculpture in Ukraine.

Sweet Brains invaded the stage, believing that they would perform first like the previous edition, despite not having submitted a song. The situation was well handled by Alexander, and they left peacefully.

Due to technical issues, Natalia Podolskaya's live performance had to be shortened down.

On December 18, the head of delegation proposed a superfinal because of the close votes, but it is unclear whether one will take place, as initiating one now would cause logistical issues.

### Results and superfinal

Alexander expressed his discontent with Naviband not qualifying for the superfinal, as he really wished to go with his band to Berlin (and, hey, he directed the video for "*A Dzie Žyvieš Ty?*" too - he didn't only play the guitar and produce the song).

The voting system was changed after the video, something the delegation is rather ashamed of, but thinks caused fairer votes.

### Superfinal results show

The superfinal results show was interestingly controversy-free, with no people taking to the stage when they shouldn't have. The biggest incident was probably when Alexander and Mustii for some reason decided to speak over one another, and when Teo realized he hadn't been added to The Origin Song Contest national final hosts groupchat, which Alexander and Mustii both referred to. Alexander expressed a slight bitterness after Immerse won, saying that traveling to Germany was his dream, but congratulated them and wished them luck nonetheless. At the end a tweet by Naviband was shown, calling him the real winner of the show.

## Reception and controversy

Like Naš Puĺs Bjecca 1.3, the national final has been criticized for favoring the Belarusian speaking population (which according to some figures could be as small as 12% of the country) over the Russian speaking majority, by having the name of the national final and the postcards written in the Belarusian language. The delegation have responded that according to some figures, approximately 54% of the whole population possess the ability to read and speak the language somewhat fluently, and that the Origin Song Contest's main language is English and not Russian, and that a title in Russian would not have the same touch as a title in Belarusian, as Belarus is the only country where the whole country has Belarusian as an official language .

Due to backlash from using Łacinka in the previous edition's name, this edition moved to changing the 2007 Romanization system, but this was criticized as well by people who saw it as an unneccessary change, and a disregard for tradition. While this is the official system, it was not in use before 2007, and many ignore it while romanizing the language anyway. In cultural contexts, it is still more common to use łacinka, and its usage is more widespread in written language. In Łacinka the name of the national final is Naš Puls Bjecca as an л followed by a soft sign is written as an l without an accent, but in the 2007 system it's written as ĺ). It is possible that this will be changed again. It has also been pointed out that a fully correct transliteration of the show's Belarusian language name would be "Naš puĺs bjecca" as an apostrophe followed by a soft vowel are transliterated with a digraph beginning with a j instead of an i.

The national final was complimented, however, for its humoristic approach and dry tone, and the ratings have been steadily increasing. Tickets for the song reveal and the final results sold out in under two hours, and hosting edition 3.5 in a larger venue, such as the Minsk Arena, is currently under consideration.

The country Belgium suggested that the selection should be rebranded to "Nas puÍs beecca" but sadly due to a lawsuit from the Bulgarian child-worker bee factory, due to the heavy demand for bees that this would require, this was not put into practise.

The hardcore Origin Song Contest fan Sasha, from Brest, who has commented on every preview of the contest in the editions Belarus have participated wrote that he felt excluded from this edition's national final. The delegation have not answered to these claims. During the superfinal results show his tweet was shown near the end, showing his disappointment in the winner.

Alexander posted that he has been receiving lots of fanmail thanks to the show, and that fans want to take selfies with him like never before.

Some fans were angry that the show took place so late in the evening, and the head of delegation was accused of prioritizing international viewers over the actual Belarusian public. Julia K., a mother of six in Brest, complained about her children refusing to go to bed until they had seen the results, and that they hadn't gotten out of bed until 11:00 in the morning the day afterwards. The head of delegation apologized for this, saying that this would be changed for next edition.

## After the show

One of the higher-ups got fired after the first preview of edition 4, and the head of delegation decided that all of the transliteration from the Belarusian alphabet will be done using the Łacinka alphabet again. This decision was revoked during a meeting on 27 February at the TV channel's headquarters.

It was been suggested that all entries for Naš Puls Bjecca 3.5 should have to be performed in the Belarusian language, and after the 27 February it has been decided that the fifth edition will indeed have a language rule. All entries must be performed in Belarusian during the national final, *and* during the international contest. This information was made public at 12:45 Belarusian standard time.