ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

You Are the Only One (Sergei Lazarev Song)

"You Are the Only One" is a song recorded by Russian singer Sergey Lazarev, released on March 5, 2016. The song was written by John Ballard and Ralph Charlie and composed by Filipp Kirkorov and Dimitris Kontopoulos.

On December 10, 2015, it was confirmed that Sergei Lazarev would represent Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2016 and that his song had been selected by a jury of which he was part of the director general of the Russian channel Rossija 1, Gennadij Gochštejn. The song chosen, "You Are the Only One," was released along with its video, in which the winner of the beauty contest Miss Russia 2015 Vladislava Evtušenko is present.

Sergei sang "You Are the Only One" for ninth place in the first semifinal on May 10 on the Eurovision stage in Stockholm and qualified for the final. In the final, he was ranked third behind Ukraine and Australia with a total of 491 points. Sergei won the public televote, obtaining 361 points from the audience across several countries including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Moldova, Serbia, and Ukraine; in Italy, he was the third most voted after Ukraine and Poland.

However, having achieved only 130 points from the juries' vote, where he ranked fifth, Sergei failed to overcome the scores of Ukraine and Australia. He did receive the most votes from the juries of Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cyprus, and Greece.

The song's music packs were released for digital download on March 5, 2016. A Russian version titled "Pust' ves' mir podozhdyot" was also released in July 2016. Sergei performed a duet with Elena Paparizou during the Home concert series to replace the canceled 2020 Contest.

Lazarev began his promotional tour for "You Are the Only One" by performing on Russia-1's Tantsi so zvezdami, and later at Eurovision Pre-Party in Izvestia Hall, Moscow. He also made appearances across Europe to promote the song as Russia's entry into the contest.

Sergei performed his song ninth on the evening of May 10 during the first semifinal of the Eurovision Song Contest held in Stockholm