Russia participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 in Athens, Greece. The Russian entry was selected internally by the Russian broadcaster Channel One Russia. Dima Bilan represented Russia with the song "Never Let You Go", which qualified from the semi-final and placed 2nd in the final, scoring 248 points.. This 2nd place, alongside the 2nd place of Alsou in 2000, was the best result of Russia until 2008.
Before Eurovision
Internal selection
On 26 January 2006, C1R announced via television adverts a submission period for interested artists and composers to submit their entries from until 1 March 2006. A jury panel would evaluate the received submissions and select the entry internally. The selection jury consisted of Konstantin Ernst, Yuriy Aksyuta, Ilya Bachurin, Alexander Polesitskiy,, Vladimir Matetsky, Viktor Drobysh and Larisa Dolina. Following the submission deadline, several artists were reported as main contenders in the media. Those artists included Dima Bilan, who submitted two songs: "Never Let You Go" and "Lady Flame"; Jasmine with the song "Desperate Foreigner"; Varvara with the song "We'll Be There" and Ariana with the song "Don't Go". On 7 March 2006, C1R announced Dima Bilan as the Russian entrant at the Eurovision Song Contest 2006. A new song were to be composed for the contest on the request of the selection jury, with one of Bilan's submitted song, "Never Let You Go", being kept as a backup entry. However as only 10 days were left until the official entry had to be submitted to the European Broadcasting Union, efforts to compose a new entry was later dropped and "Never Let You Go" was ultimately selected as the Russian entry.
At Eurovision
Since Russia did not place in the top 10 countries in the 2005 Contest, Russia was required to compete in the semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 on 18 May 2006. On 21 March 2006, Russia was drawn to perform 13th in the semi-final, following Poland and preceding Turkey. For the Russian performance, Bilan was joined on stage by two ballerinas and two backing vocalists as well as a hollow white piano where a third ballerina emerged from a rose covered opening later in the performance. Russia qualified from the semi-final, placing 3rd and scoring 217 points. Since Russia was the first national announced as a qualifying country during the semi-final broadcast, Russia took the first available qualifier spot in the final running order. In the final, Russia performed 10th, following Denmark and preceding Macedonia. After the voting concluded, Russia scored 248 points and placed 2nd. Since Russia was among the top 10 countries, excluding the nations that constitute the Big Four, Russia pre-qualified to compete directly in the final of the 2007 Contest. The semi-final and final were broadcast on Channel One, with commentary by Yuriy Aksyuta and Tatyana Godunova. The voting spokesperson for Russia was Yana Churikova.
