{"id":105436,"date":"2025-05-16T05:23:16","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T05:23:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/105436\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T05:23:16","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T05:23:16","slug":"war-reaches-ukrainian-rock-band-ziferblat-even-at-the-eurovision-song-contest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/105436\/","title":{"rendered":"War reaches Ukrainian rock band Ziferblat even at the Eurovision Song Contest"},"content":{"rendered":"

BASEL, Switzerland — Ukraine\u2019s musicians can\u2019t escape war<\/a>, even at the Eurovision Song Contest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rock band Ziferblat were in Basel, Switzerland<\/a> to represent their country when they learned the home of backing singer Khrystyna Starykova in a frontline region of eastern Ukraine had been destroyed by Russian shelling.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s so strong,\u201d said guitarist Valentyn Leshchynskyi, who formed Ziferblat with his vocalist twin brother Daniil and drummer Fedir Khodakov. \u201cShe is 19 years old only, but the impact of this situation \u2014 I think she won\u2019t give up.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course it\u2019s difficult when you\u2019re losing your flat while you need to stay calm to celebrate here because it\u2019s a musical festival, it\u2019s not about the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band is set to compete for Ukraine in Saturday\u2019s Eurovision grand final<\/a> with \u201cBird of Pray,\u201d a song whose intense vocals and prog rock sound owe something to the 1970s \u2013 as does the bell-bottomed pink suit Daniil Leshchynskyi wore in Tuesday\u2019s semi-final.<\/p>\n

Valentyn Leshchynskyi said the lyrical message of loss and hope, centered on a phoenix-like bird, resonates with what Ukrainians experienced in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to build a dream on the stage \u2013 even for three minutes, for Ukrainians \u2013 like the war will be over in the very near future,\u201d he told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

Ukraine is a longtime Eurovision competitor \u2013 as was its neighbor Russia. Both saw their relationship with the continental pop contest transformed by Moscow\u2019s full-scale invasion three years ago.<\/p>\n

Russia was kicked out of Eurovision. Ukrainian folk-rap group Kalush Orchestra<\/a> won the 2022 contest less than three months after the invasion. Winning brought the right to host the contest the following year. When war made that impossible, Liverpool stepped in<\/a> to stage Eurovision with a distinctly Ukrainian flavor, decking out the English city in blue and yellow Ukrainian flags.<\/p>\n

Even before the full-scale invasion, Ukraine used Eurovision for cultural diplomacy, as a way to tell the world about their country\u2019s history, music and language. Ukrainian singer Jamala<\/a> won the contest in 2016 \u2014 two years after Russia illegally seized Crimea \u2014 with a song about the expulsion of Crimean Tatars by Stalin in 1944. Kalush Orchestra\u2019s winning song \u201cStefania\u201d blended rapping in Ukrainian with a haunting refrain on a traditional Ukrainian wind instrument.<\/p>\n

Now the message is that Ukraine is still standing, and still fighting.<\/p>\n

Daniil admitted to feeling a \u201clittle bit of pressure\u201d ahead of Saturday. But he said it was \u201csuch a privilege\u201d to represent Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have two missions here,\u201d his brother Valentyn said. One is to come out at or near the top in Saturday\u2019s 26-nation musical showdown. The other is \u201cto remind Europeans about the war.\u201d<\/p>\n

As part of its Eurovision journey, the band is fundraising to buy robotic de-mining systems to help clear an area of Ukraine he says is 3 1\/2 times the size of Switzerland.<\/p>\n

Ziferblat\u2019s trip to Eurovision coincided with Vyshyvanka Day \u2014 the third Thursday in May, when Ukrainians around the world wear traditional embroidered shirts as a symbol of national pride.<\/p>\n

The band members joined scores of Ukrainians clad in elaborately stitched vyshyvanka in a Basel park to eat borscht, sing Ukrainian songs and cheer on the band ahead of Saturday\u2019s final.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a day that is gathering all Ukrainians together,\u201d Valentyn said. \u201cIn Kyiv, the capital, everyone is wearing these shirts and going to the streets celebrating and you feel like a united nation for one day.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press journalist Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BASEL, Switzerland — Ukraine\u2019s musicians can\u2019t escape war, even at the Eurovision Song Contest. Rock band Ziferblat were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":105437,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[48388,3907,41751,77,2000,299,13735,4179,269,657,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-105436","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-48388","9":"tag-article","10":"tag-country-music","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-eu","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-eurovision-song-contest","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-music","17":"tag-ukraine","18":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114515843960955233","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}