Hooray, hooray. I’m announcing the winner (and apologizing as well for dragging this out so long). As you may remember, I announced a music video contest against the Party of Crooks and Thieves, so we could strike a blow against the corrupt Kremlin swindlers with notes and chords. The rules were simple: participants had to make original music videos encouraging citizens to come to the polls and vote for any party other than United Russia. The winners are those who got the highest number of views. The sponsor of the contest, who provided the crisp cash, was Evgeny Chichvarkin, hiding out in London from either police gangsters or gangster policemen, where he has founded a veritable nest of émigrés. Many thanks to Evgeny. And of course, not just many thanks but enormous thanks to everyone who took part in the contest and helped create the creative wave of bashing the Party of Crooks and Thieves—which, as we can see, worked. You are all wonderful, and heroes of the new Russia. Now on to the awards (ta-da-da-dam): Here’s what the top ten looked like by number of views at the time the contest results were finalized. (thanks to Viktor Leontyev from RosAgit for help with the sorting and with the contest in general) I did, of course, mess up a bit with the rules and with the fact that I removed the band “Rabfak” from the contest. That was very stupid. I got a lot of letters explaining exactly how stupid it was. Rabfak are the obvious winners (and by the way, here’s their new video “White Ribbons”); they ought to be sent to Eurovision. But since this involves cash prizes, I can’t change the rules in the middle of the game or alter the top two positions that carry prize money. That would be unfair to those who promoted their videos on the understanding that Rabfak had been removed from the contest. The Solomon-like decision, combining fairness and the will of the people, is as follows: 1st place. The band “RABFAK.” Our Madhouse Votes for Putin A special additional prize (thanks again to chich8) — 100,000 rubles (about €2,500 at the time).
http://youtu.be/PM6EGnINEK0 2nd place. EzhoFF Band. The Party of Crooks and Thieves. Prize — 150,000 rubles (about €3,750 at the time).
3rd place. *A Little Song About the Medveds.* *We Want More Dough.* Prize — 50,000 rubles (about €1,250 at the time).
http://youtu.be/qgJxPgbtuVA I’d also like to award a modest personal favorite prize (a bottle of the alcoholic beverage known as whisky). I was torn between a dozen excellent clips and, in the end, chose these two: http://youtu.be/1h4FJRlZMdw — that insanely intense guy with the mustache is a tremendous mood-lifter. http://youtu.be/unsi_QTS2E4 — a wonderful example of how you can make a superb campaign video with nothing more than a sheet of paper and a pen. A playlist with all the contest entries can be found here. Congratulations to the winners, and I ask them to write to me from the same addresses they used to submit their videos. We’ll arrange the transfer of the London money. I suggest we consider our first experiment with a music video contest a success overall. And now let’s get ready for a new contest, which we will definitely hold taking all the mistakes into account. The theme is obvious: we’re facing a fight against the presidential candidate from the Party of Crooks and Thieves, which means we sing against Putin.