Margarita Pozoyan (stage name – Arishata) was born in the Russian town of Krasnodar in 1984. When she was two, her family moved to Artyomovsk (Donetsk Region, Ukraine). At the age of 13 she took part in the Bakhmutskaya Zvyozdochka talent show, her first singing competition, and was awarded the Grand Prix. At 14, she won first prize at the Yevgeny Martynov Open TV Festival of Lyrical Songs “Otchy Dom”. Another triumph came in 2001 when Margarita won a gold medal at the Russian Junior Delphic Games in Smolensk.

A new milestone for Margarita was her enrollment in the Institute of Modern Art (Moscow) as a second-year student. In her new status as an art student, she represented the Russian Federation at the International Delphic Games in Moldova and took home yet another gold medal.

These and many other artistic awards reinforced Margarita’s determination to dedicate herself to music and become a professional singer. She is currently engaged in a number of artistic projects and is recording her first solo album.

Roman Styx, a Moscow-based composer and sound producer, first heard Arishata’s demo track at the end of 2008. He had written a song especially for the Eurovision 2009 contest and was looking for a suitable performer.

Roman Styx: I was looking for a female singer with a strong, beautiful voice and a good command of English. I was hoping for the Christina Aguilera level of performance and had gone through many demo recordings before I came across Aguilera’s Hurt performed by Arishata. I was stunned. To be honest, I didn’t expect to find anything like that. As we started working on Breakdown, both I and the authors of the English lyrics, Dmitry and Sara Buzadzhi, noted Arishata’s great English pronunciation.

This is how our work began. The song made it to the final stage of the Eurovision 2009 selection, organized by Channel One Russia. I’d like to thank the jury for this wonderful chance.

More updates on Arishata’s work and career will be available at the project’s website (www.arishata.com) or at my personal website (www.romanstyx.com). We will try to do our best to help Russia score top points again this year. Besides, we hope to be able to present you Arishata’s debut album featuring tracks by Arishata and myself in the near future.