22:31 27.07.2016

Odesa governor Saakashvili invites Eurovision song contest to Odesa

2 min read
Odesa governor Saakashvili invites Eurovision song contest to Odesa

Governor of Odesa Regional Administration Mikheil Saakashvili has proposed that the city of Odesa in Ukraine's south could host the Eurovision song contest in 2017.

"It's only Odesa that can host Eurovision in 2017," he told TV Channel NewsOne on Wednesday.

In his words, there is no alternative to Odesa as the host city and it is related to the fact that this is Ukraine's capital of music, a multinational cultural center and "the city of the future."

"Eurovision should take place in the city of the future," he added.

Ukrainian singer Jamala won the 2016 Eurovision song contest in Stockholm with the entry titled "1944," thus bringing the next year's contest to Ukraine.

Six cities applied for a host city contest: Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Kherson. Three of them – Kyiv, Dnipro and Odesa – were named finalists. The winner was to be announced on Wednesday, July 27, however, Ukraine's Culture Ministry said the announcement had been postponed due a delay in providing financial guarantees.

Later on the same day, Ukrainian Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman said that the Ukrainian government had provided the European Broadcasting Union with guarantees worth EUR 15 million for Eurovision 2017 preparations.

Culture Minister Yevhen Nyshchuk assured Interfax-Ukraine that the issue of financial guarantees had been settled.

AD
AD
AD
AD
AD