You're reading: Kyiv wins right to host Eurovision

It’s official: Kyiv will host the 2017 Eurovision Song Contest.

The Ukrainian
Organization Committee picked Kyiv over Odesa and Dnipro (formerly
Dnipropetrovsk) to host the contest.

The decision
came on Sept. 9, after a delay of more than a month. The three cities
were pre-selected from a total of six Ukrainian cities that
bid for hosting rights, with Lviv, Kherson and Kharkiv being eliminated in the
first round of the selection process.

“One of the most important factors (for
choosing Kyiv) was the financial guarantees the city can provide,” Ukrainian
Minister of Culture Evhen Nyshchuk said during a news conference on Sept. 9 to
announce Kyiv’s selection. “
It was important that the city budget could cover the expenses by the state.”

He said that
Kyiv’s authorities were ready to allocate Hr 200 million ($8 million) to hold
the show, and Hr 1 billion ($40 million) to upgrade the event’s venue – the
International Exhibition Center on the left bank of Kyiv. Nyshchuk
said that the exhibition center, which has a capacity of 12,000-14,000 people,
will be reconstructed to improve its acoustics, decorate the venue, and upgrade
infrastructure nearby.

Nyshchuk said that the final decision had
been between Kyiv and Odesa,
and that the capital had won out because it offered a bigger budget and
already had all of the
required
infrastructure, including international airports and hotels.

Dnipro was eliminated as its Meteor
Stadium, the proposed Eurovision venue, couldn’t be reconstructed in time for
next year’s contest.

Zurab Alasania, the head of the National
Television Company of Ukraine, said the decision had been non-political, and was
taken independently by the Ukrainian organization committee together with
representatives of the European Broadcasting Union, the international organizer
of the event.

Odesa had proposed to hold Eurovision at its
Chernomorets Stadium, but the outdoor venue would have required significant spending
on a roof. Nyshchuk also said that the organizers had also taken into account
the proposed host cities’ proximity to fighting in the east of the country, with
Dnipro and Odesa being closer to the conflict zone than Kyiv.

Kyiv’s biggest
arena, the Olympysky Stadium, is unable to be used as the contest venue as the
World Hockey Championship is being held there on the dates when the song
contest is expected to take place.

The
authorities plan to launch a ferry service across the Dnipro River to take
people from the city center on the right bank to the concert hall.

Ukraine won
the right to host Eurovosion after singer Jamala won the previous year’s
contest in Stockholm, Sweden, with a song entitled “1944.” The song was about
the deportation of Crimean Tatars after the Second World War by the Soviet
authorities, who had accused them of collaborating with the Nazis.

This will be
the second time the Ukrainian capital hosts the Eurovision song contest. The
first time was in 2005, after Ukrainian singer Ruslana
Lyzhychko won the 2004 contest with her song “Wild Dances.”

So far 28
countries have confirmed that they will take part in the 2017 Eurovision Song
contest.