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.

After having briefly lived in Tatarstan as a child, Bilan's family relocated to Maysky in Kabardino-Balkaria.

[4][5][6] Bilan started playing bayan in the fifth class of school and participated in different music contests as a child.

In 2003, Bilan released his debut album Ya nochnoy huligan, which became popular in Russia and was received well among critics.

As a result, he performed its eponymous single "Ya nochnoy huligan" at the 2003 edition of Pesnya goda.

However, Bilan's big break came with the release of the ballad "Na beregu neba", which peaked at #2 at the TopHit radio charts.

[19] In mid-March 2006, Bilan was chosen internally by Russian broadcaster Channel One to represent Russia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Athens, Greece.

Out of 37 participating countries, Bilan took second place with the dark pop song "Never Let You Go", equalling one of Russia's best ever showing at Eurovision — Alsou's "Solo" was runner-up back in the 2000 contest.

Video for this song[20] was shot in London by famous British director Trudy Bellinger.

On 4 October, Bilan premiered his second single from the forthcoming album, Amnesia, at the MTV Russia Music Awards 2007.

During this show, Bilan won three awards, for Best Performer, Best Song and — for the third consecutive year — Best Artist.

[needs update] He also released an English album in 81 countries in co-operation with Interscope Records (Universal Group).

He worked on his English album, with some tracks produced by Jim Beanz and Ryan Tedder (OneRepublic).

[needs update] On 20 February, Bilan went to Miami and recorded a few tracks for his Spanish album with famous producer Rudy Perez.

In the film, Bilan performs monologues in which he shares his opinion on the moral values of the people who live in the Russian capital, as well as quotations from Ecclesiastes, and scraps of the diary of Jim Morrison.