Your trusted source

“Love is the only thing that is able to cross my borders.” Iveta Mukuchyan, Armenia’s participant of Eurovision 2016 Song Contest, said this before beginning her performance at the contest’s official pre-party in Moscow on Sunday. She dedicated her performance to those who died in the attack unleashed by Azerbaijani forces against the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on the night of April 2.

Iveta made changes in the program of her Russia visit because of the escalation of tension on the Line of Contact between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan. She was expected to appear at a news conference attended by 11 participants of the contest led by Sergey Lazarev at Moscow’s Crown Plaza Hotel, many journalists were waiting for planned interviews with the singer, and Mukuchyan also canceled her appearance on the red carpet at Izvestia Hall concert hall.

The singer only had a three-minute performance on the concert hall’s stage. She did not come on the stage at the end of the show to take a bow together with the other singers.

“In Moscow, I cancelled the press conference, all interviews, the red carpet…But I will be strong. This evening, I will perform my song in memory of the 12-year-old Vaghinak and the brave people who became victims of this terrorism. Let my song be a call for peace and love, let my voice cross all borders and stop the evil. God bless us. May God save Artsakh,” Iveta Mukuchyan wrote on her Facebook page.

Iveta Mukuchyan’s first live performance of the contest song with changed words and a new massage did not leave indifferent either the audience in the hall or the contest’s fans.