Kyiv’s Boryspil International Airport hasn’t seen a homecoming like it in a long time.
An afternoon flight from Stockholm on May 15 was met by hundreds of people, who had gathered in the arrivals hall with flowers, Ukrainian flags and banners with greetings.
It was all in honor of Crimean Tatar singer Jamala, who the day before had won the Eurovision Song Contest for Ukraine with her song “1944” – a song about the Soviets’ deportation of the Crimean Tatars from Crimea to Central Asia.
“You are our hero!” the crowd chanted together, as a tired but happy-looking Jamala came into view.
The singer’s Eurovision win was some welcome good news to a country exhausted by Russia’s war in the Donbas. And the fact that Jamala had snatched victory from Russia’s Sergey Lazarev on the very last announcement of the results of voting only added to the country’s joy.
But with victory also comes a big responsibility: Ukraine now has to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest.
And that brings the prospect of another information assault on Ukraine, as the Kremlin is infuriated over losing Eurovision to a country that it views as an enemy.
Political or personal
Jamala and Ukraine’s unexpected Eurovision win outraged many in Russia, where the contest is taken very seriously — a series of special TV talk shows about Eurovision ran before and after the contest to discuss Russia’s entry. This year, the shows ran under the slogan “The Conquest of Europe.”
Russian media reported that the Eurovision juries had been politically influenced, were prejudiced against Russia, or even that the result had been fixed with the help of the United States.
Some Russian media have gone as far as demanding that the result of the contest be annulled, although Eurovision’s organizers have already ruled this out. That hasn’t stopped over 373,000 people signing a petition on website Change.org calling for the results to be canceled, however.
Some Russian officials were unhappy that Jamala’s entry had been allowed in the first place: before the contest, Russian lawmakers demanded that the Crimean-born Jamala, whose real name is Susanna Jamaladinova, to be banned from participating because her song had a political subject and thus violated the rules of Eurovision. However, contest organizers in March ruled that the song wasn’t political.
Nevertheless, while officially the winning song is about the violent Soviet deportation of the Crimean Tatars from their native Crimea in 1944, it also had resonance given the current tensions between Ukraine and Russia, including the Russian-instigated war in the Donbas and the Kremlin’s annexation of Crimea, where the occupying authorities have been arresting and harassing Crimean Tatars.
Jamala, however, denied that the song had a political subtext. She insisted that “1944” was about a personal tragedy of her family, which was affected by the deportation.
She also said that she prefers not to read offensive comments in the Russian media.
“Haters gonna hate anyway,” she said at a press conference in Kyiv on May 17. “But for me, it’s even flattering that they (the Russians) dedicated TV shows to me. Some people just can’t lose with dignity.”
Following her victory, the Russia-installed occupying authorities in Crimea made an offer to Jamala to return to Crimea and take Russian citizenship.
When asked about that offer at a press conference in Kyiv, Jamala laughed.
“I was born in Ukraine and I’ll stay Ukrainian,” she said.
Unexpected victory
Jamala’s win was a surprise to many: The Eurovision bookies placed her well behind Russia’s Lazarev, the favorite ahead of the contest.
And during the lengthy announcement of the results of the voting, Jamala trailed the Australian entry by a wide margin. Even until the last minutes of the final, it seemed that the Ukrainian singer would probably take second place, behind either Russia or Australia.
But when the last televote, for Russia, was announced, Ukraine remained in first place, with Russia’s entry wining the most votes from the public but not making enough votes to overtake either Ukraine or Australia.
While the Western press and even many in Ukraine were surprised by Jamala’s victory, the singer herself said she had been confident she would win since the first rehearsals in Stockholm.
“Lots of journalists told me that with my strong message, voice and song, I had really upped the level of the competition,” Jamala said.
And still denying that her song was political, Jamala said that the lyric “We could build a future where people are free” is a message “that modern Europe really needs.”
Next host city
As disgruntled Russians continue to grumble over the results of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest, the Ukrainian authorities have already started thinking about how to host the contest in 2017.
The question over which city and venue should host the show came up immediately.
When Ukraine hosted Eurovision in 2005 following Ruslana’s win, the contest took place in the Palace of Sports, a Soviet-built concert venue in central Kyiv.
This time round, it’s not even certain that the show will take place in the capital. The mayors of Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk have all offered to host Eurovision 2017 in their cities. Even smaller cities, like Kherson and Irpin, have applied as well.
Kherson Mayor Volodymyr Mykolayenko said that it would be “politically logical” to conduct Eurovision in his city, as it is the closest big Ukrainian city to Crimea.
But Kyiv is still the favorite: Eurovision’s hosting rules don’t demand that the contest is held in a capital city. But traditionally the winning countries almost always host Eurovision in their capitals.
Ukraine’s Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman has told Ukrinform news agency that the host city would be selected in a transparent public competition, but Kyiv’s mayor, former heavyweight boxing champion Vitali Klitschko is already confident his city will be the winner.
“Kyiv is the most prepared city in Ukraine,” Klitschko told Inter TV. “Talking about other possible host cities is pointless.”
If Klitschko is right and Kyiv wins the right to host the Eurovision 2017, the mayor wants to opt for Olimpiyskiy Stadium as a venue instead of the old Palace of Sports. The stadium was reconstructed in 2011 and can host up to 100,000 people, while the Palace of Sports’ capacity is just 9,800 people.
According to Viktoria Romanova, a representative of Eurovision’s Ukrainian partner State Television Agency, the host country traditionally picks the city by the end of summer.
Costly prize
While a city can profit from hosting Eurovision over the long term, some in Ukraine have doubts that a country in the midst of war and an economic recession can afford to host the pricy contest.
Ukraine’s Finance Minister Oleksandr Danylyuk published a column on May 17 in which he questioned whether hosting the song contest is worth the expense.
“I call on people to calmly evaluate the profits and the opportunities that Eurovision will give us,” Danylyuk wrote in an op-ed for news website Ukrainska Pravda. “This project has to be financially justified.”
According to him, hosting the event could cost around Hr 1 billion, or $40 million.
“That’s a huge sum of money,” he wrote.
He suggested that Ukraine could pass the right to host Eurovision to another country, which has in fact happened five times in the history of Eurovision.
But any such decision will have to be made quickly. The official preparations for the contest will start in three weeks, when representatives of European Broadcasting Union, Eurovision’s organizers, will visit Kyiv.
Jamala’s producer Ihor Tarnopolskiy on May 17 addressed the Ukrainian authorities, asking them to organize the hosting of Eurovision in Ukraine transparently.
“Jamala did her job and made a miracle happen,” he said. “Now it’s your turn! Do your best to make Eurovision Ukraine a great success, not a disgrace.”
