Dima Bilan
Russian pop singer

Dima Nikolayevich Bilan (Russian: Ди́ма Никола́евич Била́н, IPA: [ˈdʲimə nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪdʑ bʲɪˈlan]; born Viktor Nikolayevich Belan [Russian: Ви́ктор Никола́евич Бела́н] on 24 December 1981) is a Russian singer. In 2002, Bilan participated in the first edition of New Wave. At the end of the contest, he finished in fourth place. He represented Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest 2006 with "Never Let You Go", finishing second, and he won the contest in 2008 in Belgrade, with the song "Believe".
Early life
Dima Bilan was born as Viktor Belan in Ust-Dzheguta in the autonomous republic Karachay-Cherkessia in a mixed family of Tatar, Karachay and Russian heritage. Bilan's father, Nikolai Mikhailovich Belan, was born in Kabardino-Balkaria and his mother, Nina Dmitriyevna Belan, in Tatarstan. He has an elder sister, Yelena, and a younger sister, Anna. After having briefly lived in Tatarstan as a child, Bilan's family relocated to Maysky in Kabardino-Balkaria.
Bilan started playing bayan in the fifth class of school and participated in different music contests as a child. He became interested in music as he enjoyed singing during school and started to write letters to the Gnessin Musical College, asking them for entrance requirements.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Dima Bilan” is russian pop singer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Dima, Bilan and Russian, not as a finished interpretation.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q42904. VIAF identifies the subject as 73321724. The Library of Congress control number is n2008012761. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1981, 2002, 2006 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “Dima Bilan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.