Moscow-born reality show singer builds fan base in China

Bulgarian-Russian singer Kristian Kostov recently released an EP, entitled Prologue, and gave a live show in Beijing to mark his 19th birthday.

The singer has built up a fan base in China after he participated in Hunan Satellite TV's reality show, Singer, which kicked off on Jan 11 and lasts for 14 weeks.

Now, he has about 420,000 followers on his Sina Weibo account.

The recording includes five songs, which he performed at the TV show, such as Beautiful Mess, which he rearranged with traditional Chinese musical instruments and performed in the first episode of the TV show, and Remember, a Chinese song, which was originally performed by Singapore singer-songwriter JJ Lin. He also collaborated with Chinese singer Chen Zitong in a song, Live It Up, for the new recording.

Kostov, who was born and raised in Moscow, was introduced to music by his Kazakh mother, who loved singing. And drawn to the sound of the piano, which his elder brother played at home, Kostov started learning the instrument at three.

His big break came in 2017 when he bagged the second place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2017, one of the biggest and longest-running annual music competitions in the world, which was watched by 200 million people on the internet that year.

Speaking about his foray into China, Kostov says: "I feel at home here, though I am 7,000 kilometers from home. I am glad that I have many fans here, who share my music."