Ukraine's leading English-language newspaper since 1995

Kyiv might not completely have it together for the incoming pop festival hordes, but visitors will still have a good time

ountry. But amidst the celebration – Ukraine was on the map! – there was a note of worry. Eurovision is a massive tourism windfall, media event and international youth party that requires a vibrant host city with a strong tourist infrastructure. It also requires an appropriate venue for a multi-day pop festival – ideally a large contemporary sports arena with high technological capabilities. Kyiv is a great place, but it does not yet have a developed tourism industry. As for venues, the only indoor venue of even vaguely appropriate size is the Sports Palace, a Soviet heap. To put it simply, Kyiv started the countdown to Eurovision with some disadvantages.

Then came the presidential campaign and the Orange Revolution. No doubt, Ukraine had more important things to think about than preparing for a pop music competition, however welcome such a thing might be.

We mention this by way of putting into context the complications that have arisen as Eurovision approaches. Tickets have been hard to come by for Western European fans who hoped to attend the event, and Kyiv still doesn’t have enough adequate hotels – while some of the hotels it does have are being accused of price-gouging. Travel agencies are finding it difficult to deal with a chaotic situation. Meanwhile, the neighborhood around Sports Palace (which remains a Soviet heap) is one huge construction site as workers struggle to spruce up the neighborhood.

In the face of all this, we ask for forbearance from Eurovision visitors. Getting Kyiv’s tourist infrastructure up to snuff in less than a year would have been a Herculean task under any circumstances. It was made harder by the fact that Kyiv hosted, during that year, a long-running cataclysmic political upheaval.

Kyiv is a very promising work in progress. We suspect visitors will have a great time here, but if they run into minor hassles, then all we can say is, come back in a couple of years. You’ll be delighted by the changes.