Conchita Wurst makes plans to tour Moscow with new album

Eurovision song contest winner Conchita Wurst has announced preliminary plans to tour the Russian capital with her debut album in November this year, according to Eurovision representative Dmitry Melnikov. Although the Austrian singer recently said that she will be unable to perform at an “after-party” competition in Moscow in July, Wurst, “is thinking about visiting Moscow in November to promote her new album,” Melnikov told RIA Novosti yesterday.

Wurst’s victory in the competition in Copenhagen in May was met with derision from a number of media and political figures in Russia, many of whom criticised the transvestite for promoting non-traditional values. Vitaly Milonov, the St Petersburg lawmaker responsible for instigating Russia’s anti-gay propaganda law, appealed to Russian minister of culture Vladimir Medinsky to ban “this creature of indeterminate gender [who] is an insult to the majority of the Russian population” from entering the country.

However, in spite of a number of social media posts from cultural and political figures reiterating Milonov’s stance, Wurst’s winning song Rise Like a Phoenix shot to number one on Russia’s iTunes just days after the Austrian singer won the competition. Wurst has also been the inspiration for a new beauty salon in Moscow, which will serve for free anyone able “to provide a faultless rendition of her song Rise Like a Phoenix”.