Embraced, excited and singing the national anthem in the shadow of the war in which their country is plunged. This is how a group of Ukrainians celebrated their victory in Eurovision in a student flat in kyiv. “Help Ukraine, help Mariupol, help Azovstal!” As soon as rapper Oleh Psiuk launches the triple shout from the stage at the end of his performance, passion is unleashed. Those present, a dozen young people, wave the country’s flag, raise their arms and throw cheers from their throats. It is the prologue to the definitive celebration achieved thanks to the popular votes. The images, projected on three meters across the wall of the room, make them almost be present in Turin.
A student apartment elevated to the category of commune, since sometimes up to 15 people coincide in it, is not a bad place to follow the Eurovision contest when there are hardly any alternatives. What remedy. No bars or joints where to mess up brown. Eurofans have to settle for following the performances locked up.
The martial law that prevails in these times of war keeps the capital under a curfew between 10:00 p.m., the time the broadcast begins in Ukraine, and 5:00 a.m. In parallel, the dry law has been partially lifted and alcohol is only stopped from being sold after four in the afternoon. Actually, it has never been difficult to have a drink during these weeks in Ukraine. Not even in the weeks when the lock was permanent.
On the Eurovision night there is no shortage of drinks on the floor, but the emptiness of the five tenants who are enlisted and wearing uniforms these days is noticeable. Three of them are enrolled in the ranks of the National Guard and another two in the Territorial Defense Corps. His companions say that some of them are firing shots on the Kharkov front or in the Donbas region, in the east of the country.
“I’m not a big fan of this contest and this type of music, but this time I feel tremendously patriotic. This song has many reasons that make me cry”, explains Lesia, 29 years old. “At first I thought it was a very local theme – from the west of the country, where she is from as well as the singer – but now I think it unites us all.” Next to her, the runaway hope of Denis, a 20-year-old graphic designer; Tim, 20-year-old Politics student; Laurenti, an 18-year-old Fine Arts student… and a group of colleagues who applaud and shout every time her flag or one of the members of her group appears on the screen.
deserted streets
Some restaurants and entertainment venues have reopened in recent weeks after the fighting receded from the capital. But when the hiphoppas components of Kalush Orquestra take to the stage, the streets remain more than deserted. The intense nightlife of this city remains lethargic. “Since kyiv was liberated, the situation is less tense. We are not as afraid as we were in February or March, but, of course, the war is not over,” adds Lesia.
“What if we win tonight?” asks one young man. “I don’t think there will be celebrations outside,” he answers himself. Going out beyond the allowed hour can cost a detention. The oven is not for buns even though the explosions in kyiv have ceased to be heard. Eurovision? “I don’t want to hear that word spoken,” replies an angry Ukrainian reporter who has covered the event twice in recent years. He believes that a victory at the festival, as predicted, is not the necessary revulsive in the current circumstances.
Stefania, the song with touches of folk that the rapper and singer of the group Oleh Psiuk dedicated to his mother, resonates at full speed while dancing in an orderly manner in the room. Already at that time, halfway through the performances, the atmosphere had been heating up. The song was written months ago, but the bum Bum war has led the Ukrainians to reinterpret the lyrics. They have made it somewhat more their own in the shadow of the mother country wounded by the war, which also left Russia out of the contest. That is what Lesia refers to, softened by the circumstances, when she explains her feelings this year with a Eurovision that usually brings her fresh.
Kalush Orchestra bounced back to the competition after the winner of the national call, Alina Pash, more popular, withdrew due to a controversial trip in 2015 to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally occupied by Russia since 2014. The group landed on the right foot , because the polls gave them a fifth place. In the early morning of February 24, with the invasion ordered from the Kremlin, the favorable winds of international solidarity lifted them to the first position.
With the cry “Help Ukraine, help Mariupol, help Azovstal!” Psiuk raised the voice of Ukrainians to almost 200 million viewers. He named not only his country, but also Mariupol, a symbolic city of resistance to the Russian siege, and the Azovstal factory, where hundreds of combatants have been locked up for weeks. They dedicate the victory to them and, of course, to their roommates who are on the front lines these days. The night lengthens between songs from the balcony… which is not prevented by the curfew.
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