Exclusive. Jamal about the song “1944”: “We need to remember the past so as not to repeat mistakes”

According to him, before the opening of the competition, the singer received a call and was offered to fly to the ceremony by helicopter, justifying this by the fact that it was so necessary for the image of Ukraine. But as it turned out later, no permits for flights over Kiev were issued, and none of the responsible services was aware of it. As a result, the singer got to the Parkovy Convention and Exhibition Center by car. But the artist’s adventures did not end there. Jamala and her producer couldn’t get inside for a long time because their badges didn’t work.

Organizers of the opening ceremony of the competition Eurovision 2017 They immediately rushed to justify themselves, calling the accusations of Jamala’s representatives groundless. Competition supervisor Eurovision 2017 Sergei Proskurnya explained that the competition script was approved by the European Broadcasting Union and was created in accordance with the EBU canons, which are that only presenters and delegations of participating countries should walk the red carpet.

“Why wasn’t Celine Dion or Toto Cutugno on this track? Could they also claim this, like the stars of yesteryear? Why wasn’t Sasha Rybak there, why wasn’t Conchita there? These questions are rhetorical. Why Jamala should it have been there?” Sergei Proskurnya was surprised.

As for the proposed helicopter services, according to him, it was a private initiative and “this person has nothing to do with the management and creative group of Eurovision.”

The second semi-final took place in Kyiv song competition Eurovision 2017, after which the remaining ten participants in the final stage of the tournament were determined.
The following made it to the finals:

Bulgaria, Christian Kostov - Beautiful mess
Belarus, Naviband group- "History of mayhem life"
Croatia, Jacques Hudek - My friend
Hungary, Jotsi Papay - Origo
Denmark, Anja Nissen - Where Am I
Israel, IMRI - Spirit of the night
Romania, Ilinka and Alex Florea - Yodel it!
Norway, JOWST - Grab The Moment
Netherlands, group OG3NE - Lights and shadows
Austria, Nathan Trent - Running On Air

The Eurovision final took place in Stockholm last Saturday, but the scandal around it continues to flare up. Spectators from many countries did not agree with the results of the judging of their own jury members. For example, the people of Ukraine, Georgia and Estonia gave the representative of Russia Sergei Lazarev the highest score - 12 points, and the jury of these countries actually boycotted his performance with a mark of 0 points. As a result, our competitor took only third place.

However, questions also arose about the winner Jamala, who represented Ukraine. Thus, Internet users were able to convict the singer of violating the Eurovision rules. According to the competition charter, songs participating in the show should not be performed before the application deadline, that is, September 1, 2015. Meanwhile, a video from Jamala’s concert was found on YouTube, posted on May 19, 2015. During this performance, the singer performed the song “1944”, which then had a different name - “Our Crimea”.

Jamala commented on this fact after learning that the recording was being discussed on the Internet. “Don’t worry, it was just a rehearsal,” she wrote on one social network. “Also, a different text and a different interpretation were used.”

However, the singer's justification seemed insufficient to outraged Internet users. Eurovision representatives received an official request to explain how the song was admitted to the competition. The answer was quite unexpected for many.

“The rules state that the composition cannot be made public until the first of September of the year preceding the start of the competition. The EBU reference group watched a video of the concert where Jamala's song was performed. But it had only been viewed by a few hundred viewers since it was published on YouTube, and the EBU concluded that the video could not be used in commercial purposes“, - the organizers of the competition voiced their opinion.

The response from Eurovision representatives, quoted by Life, caused disappointment among fans of the show, who insist that double standards are used in organizing the competition.

Let us remind you that in next year Eurovision will take place in Ukraine. One of the deputies of the Verkhovna Rada has already admitted the idea that not every representative from Russia will be able to come to the competition for political reasons. Such judgments again go against the rules of the show. Vladimir Putin's press secretary Dmitry Peskov commented on the words of the Ukrainian government representative. Eurovision is international competition, and the host must follow Eurovision rules. Everything else is their competence,” Peskov said.

On May 13, 2017, the Eurovision final, the largest non-sporting event in the world, took place in Kyiv. The competition was held for the 62nd time, and we can remember what made it memorable over this long period.

The competition was created by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The official goals of its creation were to identify talented performers through competition at the international level, as well as to strengthen cultural relations between countries and friendship between peoples. Although in fact the EBU simply wanted to increase the interest of Europeans in television, which was then just beginning its history.

The Eurovision Song Contest was first held on May 24, 1956 in the Swiss city of Lugano, and the unofficial tradition of celebrating it with scandals began from there. Moreover, sometimes the scandal is remembered longer than the winner of the competition. I will recall only the largest of them.

Thus, the first winner of Eurovision was Liz Assia from Switzerland. It immediately became clear that Luxembourg did not send its delegation to the jury, but delegated its rights in it to the owners of the competition. The hosts of the competition took advantage of this and gave all the Luxembourg votes to the representative of their country. Since only seven countries participated in the first competition, and you could vote for your country, this was enough for it to win.

In 1963, during the voting, the Norwegian delegation to the jury announced its results in descending order of points, and not in the order of performance of countries, as was customary then. The results were shown on the scoreboard and it was decided that the Norwegian delegation would simply repeat their results in due course at the end of the voting. However, at the end of the voting it turned out that the duo from Denmark is only two points behind the leader - the Israeli singer Esther Ofarim, representing Switzerland. Then the Norwegians simply changed their results, taking two points from Switzerland and giving them to their Danish neighbors. As a result, the duo became the winner Greta And Jurgena Ingmann. Although this outright fraud was seen by television viewers throughout Western Europe, the management of Eurovision did not take any measures.

The leaders of Eurovision constantly said that their competition supported the right of peoples to freedom and democracy, but this did not stop them from allowing Spain to participate in it in 1961, and in 1964 Portugal - countries ruled by dictators Francisco Franco And Antonio de Salazar, respectively.

It was Franco who became the author of the scandal with the election of the winner of the competition in 1968, although this became known only 40 years later, when the Spanish television channel TVE showed documentary“Me in May of that year.” It turned out that the dictator, through his people, offered money to jury members from four countries in exchange for supporting a contestant from Spain. Interestingly, none of them refused. The victory of the Spanish candidate gave Franco the opportunity to host Eurovision in Spain and thereby raise the international prestige of the country.

In the end the winner was spanish singer Massiel, despite the fact that her song was subjected to the biggest criticism in the history of Eurovision. She couldn’t even pass the national selection - she won there Juan Manuel Serrat. But due to the fact that Serrat decided to sing a song in Catalan, Franco removed him and appointed Massiel as the representative of Spain, who did not hide her pro-fascist beliefs. Interestingly, the victory was stolen from English singer Cliff Richard. However, he later managed to become a star even without winning Eurovision, but who remembers Massiel?

Franco's plan also worked in 1969 - Eurovision was held in his country. 15 democracies sent their performers to dictatorial Spain, only Austria refused - the first case of a boycott in the history of Eurovision. The following year, the competition in the Netherlands was boycotted by five countries. The reason for the boycott was that four winners were announced at the competition in Spain, including the host country.

The 1974 contest was obviously the most successful in the history of Eurovision. A truly worthy winner was chosen - the Swedish group ABBA.

In addition, it was not politics that influenced the performers, but vice versa. Song Italian singer Gigliola Cinquetti Si (“Yes”), which took second place, was not broadcast in her homeland, as the composition was considered propaganda before the referendum on allowing divorce.

And the last place song Portuguese singer Paulo de Carvalho E depois do adeus (After Farewell) signaled the revolution that overthrew the country's 40-year dictatorship.

However, these were rather two happy exceptions. After the capture of Northern Cyprus by Turkish troops in 1974, Greece boycotted the competition the following year, and in 1976 its participant Marisa Koch sang the song Panagia Mou, Panagia Mou ("Holy Virgin, Holy Virgin") dedicated to this event. It sang about refugee camps instead of tourist camps and burnt houses on the island. Türkiye refused to participate in the competition for two years as a sign of protest.

In 1978, when the winner was the representative of Israel Izhar Cohen, the broadcast of Eurovision was interrupted in several Arab countries, and in Jordan viewers were told that Belgium had won.

France in 1982 declared that Eurovision was the epitome of “nonsense and mediocrity” and refused to participate, but a year later it returned, and the competition began to be broadcast by another French television channel.

In 1986, the winner of the competition was again chosen in violation of the rules. It was announced that the first place winner from Belgium Sandra Kim 15 years is the minimum age allowed for a participant. Later it turned out that she was only 13 years old, and that she was specially “aged” with the help of cosmetics and clothes. As usual, this revelation had no consequences. The Eurovision Organizing Committee will never admit its mistakes.

In the second (after ABBA) and, unfortunately, still in last time, in 1988, the Eurovision Song Contest accomplished what it was officially created for - opened new star in pop music. The winner was Canadian singer Celine Dion, representing Switzerland.

In 1990, the winner was a talented musician Toto Cutugno, but he was widely known before his participation in Eurovision.

In 1994 Edita Gurnyak performed part of her song on English language, while then it was allowed to perform songs only in state language the country you represent. Despite demands from six countries for her disqualification, she finished second.

In the same year, Russia made its debut at the competition, it was represented by Maria Katz with the song "Eternal Wanderer".

The principle of free participation of any European country was abolished in 1996. The organizing committee decided to reduce the number of participants from 29 to 23 in a simple way- expelling representatives from six countries that he did not like after a preliminary audition. Russia was the first to be expelled.

In 1998, the competition was again won by an Israeli representative named Yaron Cohen. In 1993, he changed his gender and became a woman, performing under the name Dana International. This time, not only Arab countries were indignant, but also in Israel itself there were demonstrations of Orthodox Jews, even demanding the resignation of the government of the country, which allowed such a representative of the country to participate in Eurovision. Russia was again unable to participate due to its low rating.

In the same year, a boycott of the competition by Italy began. This presenter musical country the world doubted the objectivity of the evaluation of the performers, since throughout the entire period its representatives won only twice. Italy returned to Eurovision only in 2011, but this competition in the country is still very much inferior in popularity music festival in Sanremo: name last winner Anyone can tell you about the festival, but the vast majority of Italians cannot name the representative of Italy at the last Eurovision.

Revolutionary changes occurred at the competition in 1999. Firstly, they were allowed to sing in any language, and almost all participants began to sing in English. Secondly, it was decided that France, Germany, Spain and Great Britain would take part in the final part of the competition, regardless of their results. In 2011, Italy was given the same right in exchange for its return.

However, no logical explanation for this privilege was given. It is sometimes said that these countries have greatest number TV viewers. Then the question arises: why then is Russia not among them? But no one gives an answer to it. I can’t help but remember a phrase from the satirical story “Animal Farm” George Orwell: “All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others."

And Russia was again not allowed into the competition that year under the pretext that its television did not broadcast Eurovision last year.

Throughout Europe in 2003 thundered Russian group“Tatu”, and it was she who was considered the undisputed favorite of Eurovision. However, to the amazement of all of Europe, Tatu took only third place. The announced voting results surprised viewers even more. For example, it turned out that in the UK, where the group occupied the top lines of all the charts for three weeks, they allegedly cooled off towards it so unexpectedly that they did not give it a single point. Ireland in last moment decided that the ratings would be given not by TV viewers, but by the jury, which also did not give Tatu a single point.

New official star European pop music winner was the representative of Turkey Sertab Erener.

In 2005, two events took place in Kyiv with an interval of four months: the first Maidan and Eurovision. The delight of the democratic public at the fact that they managed to install their own obedient executor at the head of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko, was so great that at the Eurovision Song Contest it was decided to forget the constant assurances that it was not political and to openly demonstrate support for the new Ukrainian president. Yushchenko was personally present at the final of the competition and congratulated the winners, and Ukraine was represented by the group “Grinjoly” with the song “Razom nas bogogo” (“Together there are many of us”), which was the anthem Ukrainian nationalists on the first Maidan in Kyiv. Readers Federal agency news can enjoy it musical masterpiece, where the song title is repeated countless times.

European viewers also “appreciated” the song, and Ukraine took 19th place that year.

At Eurovision in 2007, the representative of Ukraine Andrey Danilko, better known as Verka Serdiuchka, performing his song “Lasha Tumbay”, instead of these two words he sang “Russia, goodbye”, which in English means “Russia, goodbye”. The Eurovision Organizing Committee, as usual, did not react to the attack against the participating country, but the Ukrainian did not manage to go unpunished: his popularity in Russia fell sharply, and along with it, income from concerts fell. But Ukraine admired him - there Danilko immediately received the title “ people's artist", and at the last Eurovision held in Kyiv, a fragment of this song was shown again in the second semi-final - Russophobia is now held in high esteem there.

Also in 2007, the winner was the representative of Serbia Maria Sherifovich, who later stated that her victory is a victory for all lesbians in the world.

The following year, the winner of Eurovision was already well-known at that time Russian singer Dima Bilan. A scandal immediately broke out: the head of the national television and radio company of Ukraine Vasily Ilashchuk stated that the vote for the Russian contestant was rigged. Ilashchuk was immediately supported by representatives of several Western European countries. However, the slanderers were unable to provide any evidence, and victory remained with Russia.

At the Eurovision Song Contest in 2010, a scandal occurred a few days before the opening of the competition. A video of a porn film has appeared on the Internet, where a contestant from Germany performs sexual intercourse in a pool Lena Mayer-Landrut. It turned out that she had acted in adult films two years before her participation in the competition, when she was 17 years old. Tolerant Europe was not embarrassed by this, and the porn actress became new winner"Eurovision". She represented Germany at Eurovision the following year.

The winner of the 2012 competition in Baku is Swedish Lauryn- She thanked the owners in a very unique way. She met with local human rights activists and then told reporters: “Every day there is an increase in human rights violations in Azerbaijan.”

The Eurovision Song Contest 2014 will, without any doubt, always be remembered. This is the merit of its winner - the representative of Austria Thomas Neuwirth, better known by his creative pseudonym - Conchita Wurst, and even better known as the bearded woman - the winner of Eurovision. Without any exaggeration, he became the living embodiment of European tolerance. Few people remember how he sings, but everyone remembers what he looks like.

The German magazine Stern frankly admitted: “The competition song itself was mediocre and turned into a grandiose one only in combination with the performer.”

And the former Prime Minister of Poland Jaroslaw Kaczynski spoke even more harshly: “Europe is taking away our shipyards and sugar factories, and in return they are giving us bearded women.”

Two years later in Sweden, the Eurovision Song Contest again proved that its main goal is not to identify musical talent, but to promote Euro-Atlantic values. This is understandable: for the first time the competition was broadcast in the USA. As always, there were plenty of scandals: first, because of debts, Romania was not allowed in, then they approved the rule that only national flags UN member countries, as well as flags of the European Union and the LGBT community, that is, sexual minorities. This glorification of the LGBT community has amazed many.

The biggest scandal was the victory of the representative of Ukraine Jamals with the song "1944". European spectators gave victory to the representative of Russia Sergei Lazarev, but few people are interested in their opinion, and after the jury voted, Jamala became the winner. Before and during the competition, she vehemently insisted that her song was not political and did not violate the Eurovision rules. Of course, the organizing committee and the EBU believed her, although it is clear to anyone that a song with such a name cannot but be political. Having returned to Ukraine with victory, Jamala admitted that her song was political and dedicated to deportation Crimean Tatars and is a means of putting pressure on Russia.

But even this did not become an obstacle to Jamala’s performance of this song during the first semi-final of the last Eurovision contest on May 9, 2017 in Kyiv. According to Ukrainian media reports, three more scandals at this competition are associated with Jamala. For her non-competitive participation, Jamala asked for almost a million hryvnia (about two million rubles); at the opening of the competition, the organizing committee forbade her to walk along the red carpet along with the participants and presenters, and in the final, a Ukrainian prankster Vitaly Sedyuk during her performance, he unexpectedly exposed his butt and showed it to television viewers.

The main scandal was Ukraine’s refusal to allow a Russian representative to the competition Yulia Samoilova. Official reason refusal - her visit to Crimea in 2015. This is further proof that Eurovision is an absolutely political competition.

The Ukrainian organizers got a taste and decided to ban the Bulgarian representative from participating in the competition Christian Kostov, which was considered one of the favorites. They wanted to prevent a person who was born and lives in Moscow, who participated in many Russian music competitions and calls him his mentor, from winning in the capital of the country, which is fighting everything Russian in every possible way. Dima Bilan.

Christian Kostov could be banned from entering Ukraine for the same reason as Yulia Samoilova - because of her visit to Crimea. However, for fear of a scandal, the ban was not imposed, formally due to the fact that Kostov visited Crimea in 2014 even before Ukraine adopted a law banning visitors to the peninsula without its permission. Other sources claimed that the young Muscovite was “pardoned” due to the fact that he was a minor at the time of his visit to Crimea. Bulgarian media write that the reason for the lifting of the ban was the intervention of the European Union, which includes Bulgaria.

As a result, the victory was still stolen from Kostov, although the Eurovision winner was Portuguese Salvador Sobral really charmed many.

In any case, this year everything was as usual: the Eurovision Song Contest began and scandals began.

In this article I don’t even mention the many other scandals that occurred at absolutely all competitions. For example, there are many accusations of plagiarism - illegal appropriation of other people's songs. It is impossible to describe the hundreds of scandals in many countries when determining the national representative for the competition.

However, even without this, some conclusions can be drawn. Eurovision clearly failed in its officially announced task of identifying new talents. The further we go, the more not talented, but, to put it mildly, original performers are revealed. The strengthening of friendship between peoples is also not going well. Those peoples who were already friends before demonstrate their friendship at the competition through the so-called “neighborhood vote,” which the EBU is unsuccessfully fighting. For example, Romania and Moldova, Greece and Cyprus always give each other the highest score. And those peoples who were at enmity demonstrate their enmity at the competition. For example, Armenia boycotted Eurovision in Azerbaijan in 2012.

One thing is indisputable: the main task of the competition now is to promote examples of a new type of culture. He's up to the task, and the show will no doubt go on for years to come.

Netizens discovered a concert recording of the singer performing the song with which she won Eurovision. There seems to be nothing extraordinary in this, but this recording was made on May 19, 2015 and at that time it was called “Our Crimea.” As you know, according to the rules of the competition, the composition presented by the participant should not be presented to the public earlier than September 1 of the previous year.

In response to a comment from one of the Internet users, : “Don’t worry my friend, it was just a rehearsal. It wasn't the right song."

By the way, the video recording from the Internet was immediately “cleaned up” by fans of the Eurovision 2016 winner, but, unfortunately for them, observant users managed to save the video with the date of the performance.

Despite the evidence, official representatives of the competition, especially since the entry was not very popular on the Internet, and only a few users watched it.

“The rules state that the composition cannot be made public until the first of September of the year preceding the start of the competition. The EBU reference group watched a video of the concert where Jamala's song was performed. But it has only been viewed by a few hundred viewers since it was posted on YouTube, and the EBU concluded that the video could not be used for commercial purposes,” responded Russian journalists Eurovision official Paul Jordan.

Photo: TV channel "Russia"

Let us remind you that the final of the Eurovision Song Contest 2016, which took place in Stockholm last weekend, became. Fans of the show cannot remember so many dissatisfied with the voting results of the professional jury. Perhaps the reason is that this year, for the first time throughout Europe, the scores given by the jury members and the votes of the audience were announced separately. According to the first, the victory was won Ukrainian singer, who sang a song dedicated to the persecution of her ancestors in 1944. The majority of viewers voted for Russian performer Sergei Lazarev, who sang a song called “You are the Only One”. At Eurovision, he ultimately took only third position.

Dissatisfied and give first place to someone who truly deserves it. In two days, the document was signed by more than 300 thousand people, and the Eurovision organizers could no longer ignore this hype. However, the leadership of the competition did not succumb to the general hysteria and they expressed their position quite harshly and directly.

“We understand that not everyone agrees with the results of the Eurovision Song Contest,” the statement said. “However, in a competition where results are determined based on subjective and often very personal opinions, there will always be people who disagree. Despite this, the results will remain valid."

So she can rest assured that no one will take away her well-deserved reward. And Eurovision 2017 will take place in Kyiv next year.

Eurovision is a television event watched by approximately 125 million viewers worldwide. The 61st Eurovision Song Contest 2016 this year starts on May 10 in Stockholm. This time representatives of 43 states are taking part in it. Ukraine is represented by the Ukrainian singer of Crimean Tatar origin Jamala.

The International Pop Song Competition among the member countries of the European Broadcasting Union has been held annually since 1956. The first Eurovision Song Contest took place in Switzerland. The founding fathers took a fancy to the song festival in San Remo in 1955 and decided to hold the competition in their own way the following year in the Swiss city of Lugano.

On the eve of Eurovision 2016, the competition received the Charlemagne medal for its services in uniting European countries and peoples. The Eurovision Song Contest is considered one of the most popular non-sporting events in the world.

Records

The most "singing" country is Ireland. She holds the record for the number of victories at the competition - 7 victories, of which three times in a row - 1992, 1993, 1994.

The country that has most often hosted Eurovision is Great Britain – 8 times. Of these, 5 times after her victory and three times she helped out countries that refused to accept the competition.

Performers who became international famous stars after participating in Eurovision: Swedish quartet ABBA, Celine Dion, Toto Cotugno, Al Bano and Romina Power, Rafael, Julio Iglesias.

The youngest Eurovision winner is Sandra Kim from Belgium, who was 13 years old when she won the competition in 1986.

​Contest Rules Updates

This year, changes to the rules of the competition regarding the format for announcing votes in the finals came into force. Thus, the jury voting results will be announced separately from the TV viewer voting results. First, countries will announce only 12 points from the jury (scores from 1 to 10 will be highlighted on the screen), after which the votes of viewers will be counted. These voices will be announced by the presenters of the competition.

Scandals at Eurovision

Over the history of its existence, Eurovision has the status of not only famous, but also scandalous music competition. One of high-profile scandals happened in 2014. Then the bearded transvestite from Austria, Conchita Wurst, won the competition. Many countries recognized this decision as fair, but not all. Russian politicians spoke aggressively against the organizers of the competition and the winner himself. A number of media outlets published articles criticizing the “decay of the West.” Turkish newspaper Hürriyet wrote that after Wurst's victory, Turkey will "put an end once and for all" to Eurovision. The Catholic radio station in Hungary interrupted the broadcast of Eurovision as soon as it became known that Conchita Wurst would be the winner.

Among the scandals at the song competition was also copyright infringement. For the first time such a conflict occurred at Eurovision 1973, when in Luxembourg the song “Eres Tu” by the Spanish group was recognized as plagiarism. In addition, in different years Contestants from Sweden, Bulgaria, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Russia were accused of plagiarism.

In 2007, a scandal erupted around the song of a contestant from Ukraine Andrei Danilko (Verka Serduchka). Russian viewers accused the performer of singing the phrase “Russia Goodbye” instead of the official version of “Lasha Tumbai” in the final of the competition.

There are a few days left before the Eurovision 2016 final, but the competition is already remembered for several scandals. A list of prohibited flags was published on the official website of the song competition. Among them: the flags of the DPR group, which Ukraine has recognized as terrorist, the Republic of Crimea and the Crimean Tatars, and, in addition, the banner of the Islamic State group.

The organizers subsequently apologized and stated that they did not want to offend anyone. They noted that only flags of official participating countries can be used at the competition.

Another scandal concerns geography. A video has appeared online announcing the performances of participants in the Eurovision 2016 song contest, where the Russian region of Kuban looks like the territory of Ukraine. The same Kuban, however, in the video announcing the speech of the Russian representative Sergei Lazarev is already listed as Russia.

​Jamal at Eurovision 2016

This year, Ukraine will be represented at the competition by the Crimean Tatar singer Jamala. In Stockholm, she will sing the song “1944,” dedicated to Stalin’s deportation of Crimean Tatars from Crimea in 1944. In 1989, the Soviet government officially declared the deportation illegal. The song is in English with a Crimean Tatar chorus. According to the singer, he was inspired to write the song by his great-grandmother’s story about deportation.

Jamala’s song “1944” took first place at the European song opening-2016 festival, which is considered a kind of exit poll before Eurovision.

According to online voting on the website Oddschecker.com, Jamala could tentatively take third place at Eurovision 2016. Its main competitors are France and Russia.

Russia opposed the performance of the Crimean Tatar performer at Eurovision. In particular, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy Vadim Dengin demanded that the singer not be allowed to participate in the competition, because supposedly the Ukrainian authorities once again wanted to “annoy Russia” with this song.

Chairman of the occupation power of Crimea Sergey Aksenov noted that sending Jamal to Eurovision is unacceptable, since this allegedly “politicizes” the competition.

The world's media wrote that Jamala's performance at Eurovision would anger Russia.

In her interviews, Jamala says that she feels incredible support from Crimea. The Crimean Tatar singer believes that her visit to Crimea and Russia is now impossible.

“I’m afraid that when I come to Moscow, they will say “Jamal is ours.” I am afraid of them, because there is already mistrust, lies... I want the war to end in Donbass. I want Crimea to be Ukrainian. And then I will definitely come to Crimea, and there will be a concert that you have not heard yet,” Jamala promises.

Jamala has number 15

The first semi-final of Eurovision 2016 is scheduled for Tuesday, May 10. Jamala will compete in the second semi-final, on Thursday, May 12, as number 15. The final of the competition will take place on Saturday, May 14, in the largest spherical structure in the world, the Ericsson Globe Arena, which simultaneously receives up to 16 thousand visitors. The competition participants have already arrived in Stockholm and are actively rehearsing.

Last year, Ukraine refused to participate in Eurovision. This decision was made by the National Television Company of Ukraine together with the European Broadcasting Union. Among the reasons given were the following: financial crisis, political situation in the country, military aggression from the east, annexation of Ukrainian territories.

Ukraine took part in the Eurovision Song Contest for the first time in 2003 in Riga - there Alexander Ponomarev sang Hasta la Vista. This song was not a great success; the singer then took fourteenth place. However, the following year, the Ukrainian singer Ruslana won in Turkey, thanks to which the Eurovision 2005 contest was held in Kyiv.