Evgeny Slavich entered the top five after the first day of the "Vitebsk-2012" competition

July 15, Vitebsk / Diana Kurilo - BELTA /. Belarus' representative at the international pop song performers contest "Vitebsk-2012" Yevgeny Slavich made it to the top five after the first stage of the competition, a BELTA correspondent reports. On the first day of the competition, July 14, young talents performed a song in their native language to a minus-one backing track on the stage of the Summer Amphitheater. Yevgeny Slavich sang "Berega," a song by Belarusian authors in Russian. His performance was rated by the competent jury, headed by composer Maxim Dunaevsky, at 88 points out of a possible 110. The leaders of the first day were Boban Mojsoski from Macedonia and Samantha Tina from Latvia. Both performers scored 93 points. They were followed by Federica Marinaria from Italy and Halyna Konakh from Ukraine, who received 91 points each. Russian participant Anastasia scored 81 points. The blonde Siberian girl topped the second ten contestants. This time, the Vitebsk audience agreed with the jury in their assessment of most contestants. However, everyone noticed the chairman's strict attitude towards emerging artists. The maestro was stingy with high scores, awarding eights to only four performers out of twenty. Backstage, a BELTA correspondent asked Maxim Dunaevsky about his impressions of the contestants and heard in response: "I liked everyone, but not everyone performed equally well." Today will put all the dots over the i's (or perhaps add even more intrigue). In the evening, at the Summer Amphitheater, accompanied by the National Concert Orchestra of Belarus under the direction of maestro Mikhail Finberg, contestants will perform a pop song by a composer from a Slavic country in one of the Slavic languages. This year, 20 contestants from 20 countries are participating in the competition. Based on the results of the two days, prizes and awards will be presented to the competition participants. The laureates of the competition will be awarded special "Lyre" prizes and diplomas of the holder of the respective prize. The Grand Prix winner will receive $15,000, the 1st prize winner - $9,000, the 2nd prize winner - $6,000, and the 3rd prize winner - $3,000. The jury has the right not to award the Grand Prix, and such cases have occurred in the more than 20-year history of the competition, so the intrigue will remain until the awards ceremony scheduled for July 16. -0-