Eurovision host Ukraine issues stamp with 2016 winner Jamala
Ukraine's postal service on Thursday announced the issue of a stamp honouring 2016 Eurovision winner Jamala as the country gears up to host this year's televised song competition in Kiev. The ethnic Tatar singer from Ukraine's Russian-annexed Crimea brought the annual festival to Kiev by winning last year's closely-contested competition in Stockholm. The 33-year-old instantly became a national heroine for performing a powerful ballad about the Soviet Union's repression of Tatars in the peninsula seized by Russia from Ukraine in March 2014. Jamala's victory was especially sweet for Ukrainians because she came from behind to pip Russia's entry at the very end of voting by fans from across Europe and national juries. "We take pride in the talent of Jamala, a Ukrainian people's artist," the Ukrpochta postal service said in a statement on its official Facebook page. It also posted a picture of the stamp that features a brown-hued signed portrait of Jamala looking off into the distance. The stamp is worth four hryvnias ($0.15 / 0.14 euros) and will go on sale Friday. It costs slightly more than two hryvnias to send a regular letter inside Ukraine. Eurovision's semi-finals are on May 9 and 11. The final will be held on May 13. The entire event is expected to draw a global television audience of more than 200 million as well as vast numbers of additional viewers online. Kiev is preparing for 20,000 international fans to arrive in a city that only three years ago witnessed a bloody pro-EU revolution in which Ukraine severed its ties with old master Russia. A separatist insurgency in Ukraine's east followed that Russia denies backing in revenge for losing control of its neighbour. More than 10,000 people have died in the war.
