Sweden’s Loreen wins Eurovision 2012
Sweden's Loreen won this year's Eurovision song contest held in the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Saturday, with her song "Euphoria" taking the top spot with 372 points.
Russia's Buranovskie Babushki with the song "Party for Everybody" took the second place with 259 points.
Serbia's Zeljko Joksimovic with the song "Nije Ljubav Stvar" settled for third place with 214 points.
Azerbaijan, represented by Sabina Babayeva with the song "When The Music Dies", took the fourth spot with 150 points. Sabina received the top 12 points from Turkey, Ukraine, Malta and Lithuania. Voters in Russia, Moldova, Bulgaria and Georgia granted Azerbaijan 10 points.
Sweden got the highest score of 12 from eighteen countries: Austria, Belgium, France, Great Britain, Slovakia, the Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Estonia, Denmark, Latvia, Spain, Finland, Germany, Russia, Hungary, Israel and Ireland.
A total of 42 countries participated in this year's contest.
The 57th Eurovision Song Contest was held in Baku Crystal Hall, a facility seating around 25,000 viewers built recently near the National Flag Square on the coast of the Caspian Sea.
The television audience of Eurovision 2012 was 120 million people in 50 world countries.
The logo for this year's song contest was "Fire Flower", while the motto - "Light Your Fire".
Azerbaijan won the right to host the song contest after the victory of Eldar Gasimov and Nigar Jamal (Ell/Nikki) at Eurovision 2011 in Dusseldorf, Germany.
Eurovision has a rich tradition and heritage, dating back to 1956. It is one of the few truly pan-European television programs transmitted live via the Eurovision satellite network, in prime time on free-to-air television, as well as online.